| David N. Keightley, a famous American Oracle-bone scholar, is the pioneer and authority of Oracle-bone Inscriptions in North America. Using Oracle-bone Inscriptions as the main study object, he devotes all his life to the research into the country, politics, religion and other aspects of late Shang, China. So far, he has published three monographs on Oracle-bone Inscriptions study, including the first general theoretical Oracle-bone Inscriptions book that written in English in western counties; published over ten book reviews and hundreds of articles on Oracle-bone Inscriptions. Moreover, he is the founder of Early China Journal and promotes the "Early China" to be an independent field of study and initiates the Oracle-bone Inscriptions-orientated study of "Early China" in North America. Therefore, he has a profound impact on the formation and development of Oracle-bone Inscription and Early China study in North America. However, domestic studies on Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study are very lacking. Thus, making a comprehensive introduction and in-depth research about Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study and recognizing his achievements and shortcomings can fill the gaps in this area at home and abroad, and expand domestic research horizons. Based on Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions writings, this paper is going to make a comprehensive introduction and exploration about Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study.This paper is comprised of seven chapters:chapter 1 introduces the significance of the topic, current research, research methods and style, Keightley’ s life and writings, contributions of his Oracle-bone Inscriptions study and his research activities chronology. Chapter 2 is the study of Keightley’s monographs and his works - Sources of Shang History, The Ancestral Landscape and Working For His Majesty will be studied respectively by introducing their main contents as well as evaluating those works. Chapter 3 is a synthesis of Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study, which is based on his Oracle-bone Inscriptions monographs and hundreds of articles, and intends to show an overview of Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study. Chapter 4 studies Keightley’s research on the basis of his Oracle-bone Inscriptions book reviews, and summarizes some features of his Oracle-bone Inscriptions study. Chapter 5 is the study of Keightley’s English translation of Oracle-bone Inscriptions. In this chapter, the translated Oracle-bone vocabularies in Sources of Shang History, The Ancestral Landscape and Working For His Majesty will be sorted out and checked one by one. Chapter 6 is ideology trace of Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study and intends to deeply discuss the guiding ideologies and theories of Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study. Chapter 7 is the study of Keightley in association with North American Oracle-bone Inscriptions. Putting Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study into the context of North American Oracle-bone Inscriptions study, it will analyze the status and role of his research. On the basis of Keightley’s Oracle-bone Inscriptions study and taking other North American representative Oracle-bone Inscriptions authors’ studies into consideration, this paper intends to draw the outline of North American Oracle-bone Inscriptions study and demonstrate its developing history. |
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