At the invitation of Cuiying Honors College and College of History and Culture of Lanzhou University, Professor Wang Renxiang from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences will come to our campus to give a lecture on November 22, 2020. All students and faculty are invited to attend!

Lecturer: Prof. Wang Renxiang

Title: Faith and Civilization - The Art World in the Prehistoric God-Making Movement

Time: Sunday, November 22, 2020, 9:30-11:00 a.m.

Place: Room 813, Guanyun Building

Host：Prof. Wei Wenbin

Introduction of the lecturer:

Wang Renxiang is an archaeologist and cultural scholar, and a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is also a professor at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and has been appointed as a special professor at Nanjing Normal University and Capital Normal University, as well as a special researcher at the Humanities College of Shanghai Jiaotong University. He has edited and authored more than one hundred academic works, includingThe Art Wave in Prehistoric China,Collected Works on Chinese Prehistoric Archaeology,Half-Window Imagery,Mortal and Divine Worlds,Tibetan King's Tomb,The Beginning of Chaos,Food and Chinese Culture,Taste of the Past, andGood Self-Restraint: Ancient Hooks and Buckles. In recent years, he has been focusing on the study of the connotation of faith in early Chinese artworks, and related writings will be published soon.

Summary of Lecture:

Human prehistoric art is a kind of soul art and god-making art. The god-making movement in art, which began 8,000 years ago in China's prehistoric era, integrated science into artistic thinking, used art to construct and spread beliefs, and pushed beliefs to widespread recognition, making them the soul of art. The widely recognized belief system established in the prehistoric era was passed down with the development of art until the early civilization. The art traditions established in prehistoric times have influenced the spiritual life of future generations and even modern people. Civilization takes root and blossoms through the establishment and recognition of beliefs, and the same beliefs are recognized through their widespread dissemination, which is the foundation for the birth of civilization. Prehistoric art and archaeology have discovered the trajectory of faith identity and propagation, opening up new horizons and clarifying new directions for finding the source of civilization.

                                                                Cuiying Honors College & College of History and Culture

                                                                                    November 16, 2020

(Translated by Lai Baojun; proofread by Jia Shengyi)