About the Project

This video walk-through of the Autumnal Sacrifice to Confucius is the culmination of a 2-year collaboration between Stephanie Wong and Professor Thomas A. Wilson. Having shot the footage of the ritual in 1997 with the help of Brooks Jessup, Professor Wilson hoped to make the video more widely accessible to scholars and students alike. Having taken a course with Professor Wilson, Stephanie offered to update Professor Wilson's website, as well as create a user-friendly DVD of the original footage. Wanting to push the project further and aided by the newly founded Digital Humanities Initiative at Hamilton College, the two decided to pursue an independent project that would make the video available to a wider audience.

Stephanie selected clips from the original footage that would give any viewer a comprehensive understanding of the Autumnal Sacrifice. Additionally, she researched and studied Confucianism to understand why the ritual was significant, and why ritual was central to Confucian beliefs. Synthesizing her research, she wrote up brief descriptions of the ritual and also provided a great deal of background information on where various aspects of the ritual came from, the significance and meaning behind actions and objects, and the role ritual played in Confucianism in imperial China.

Through this project, we hope to provide scholars of all levels with valuable and accessible information through the use of streaming video and written text.

Stephanie Wong

Stephanie Wong is an alum of Hamilton College. She graduated in 2010 with a concentration in Psychology and a minor in Anthropology. Her interests focus on using media in new and innovative ways to increase information and digital literacy. She hopes to utilize her passion to positively effect social change.

Thomas A. Wilson

Professor Thomas A. Wilson is currently a Professor of History at Hamilton College. He earned his Ph.D at the University of Chicago. His research interests focus on the ritual tradition of Confucianism and the imperial cult of Confucius. He has authored a number of articles, as well as published Genealogoy of the Way and, most recently, co-authored Lives of Confucius with Michael Nylan.