LI HUA is a first year Ph.D. student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Fudan University in China, and her M.A. in Comparative and Public History at CUHK. After teaching News Edit in college for four years, she got her MPHIL degree in History at CUHK, with a thesis on the anomaly accounts (stories of strange events) of Early Medieval China. Her current research focuses on funerary culture in the Six Dynasties of ancient China. Her interests include material culture and literary text.

Funeral Practice and Social Life in the Six Dynasties

This project pays particular attention to "Gui Zang 歸葬," which means burial in one’s hometown, together with one's ancestors. This thesis suggests that other than a cultural heritage carried on from the Han Dynasties, "Gui Zang 歸葬" in the Six Dynasties was rebuilt by the new social reality and political order, developing independently along the division time, and turned around and influenced the society. This research is going to trace the variation and consistency of culture through case studies, to get an in-depth understanding of Chinese society. To do so, this study intends to examine physical evidence, including tombs, relics, funerary goods, epitaphs, land vouchers, graphical arts, and also consider literary records like historical documents, wills, poetries, ghost stories, and so on.