Literature and Cultural History of Pre-Modern East Asia

To download the outline of the talk, click here: the-cultural-significance-of-peking-opera-and-mei-lanfang

4:30pm | Harper Memorial | Room 145

Fu Jin 傅谨

Visiting Professor at the department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago

Professor in Chinese music drama at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts 中国戏曲学院

“京剧与梅兰芳的文化意义”

(“The Cultural Significance of Peking Opera and Mei Lanfang”)

To download the paper, click here: widmer_jan-20

4:40PM | Regenstein Library | Room 523

Ellen Widmer

(Professor at the Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Wellesley College)

The Saoye Shanfang of Suzhou and Shanghai:An Evolution in Five Stages

Abstract: The paper details the evolution of a Suzhou bookshop, Saoye shanfang 掃葉山房, through four main stages. Saoyeshanfang started in late Ming, gets going in earnest under Qianlong, wiped out under Taipings but regenerates with branches in Shanghai as well as the original location, Suzhou. It continues through the Republic but starts falling behind the leaders. It does mainly wholesaling during war against Japan.  During the third and fourth of these stages it moved to Shanghai and set up other branches in Songjiang and Hankou. The paper also offers a brief coda on the firm’s last stage, when the bookshop resurges again and moves to Hong Kong, and closes in 1955, although information about this last stage is very sketchy, and a concluding section on the role of women readers.

4:00pm | CWAC | Room 156

Quincy Ngan

 (Ph.D. student, Art History Department, University of Chicago)

“Eating Azurite and Malachite: The Age-Defying Connotation of the Blue-and-Green Style”

Abstract:
I look at paintings which represent “the realm of the immortals” and, interestingly, all are painted with azurite and malachite, the two pigments which constitutes “the “blue-and-green style.” My presentation questions why “the blue-and-green style,” in Chinese visual culture, is usually deployed to represent “the realm of the immortals.” This phenomenon seems to indicate that “the blue-and-green style” can evoke mortality. In fact, there is a variety of reasons that “the blue-and-green style” can evoke immortality. Firstly, azurite is an ingredient for making elixir, as mentioned in Daoist writings dating back to the Jin Dynasty (265-420). The other reason is that both azurite and malachite are recorded in various pharmacopeias and gazetteers from the Sung to Early Qing Dynasties. These writings state that the two minerals have medicinal healing and age-defying effects. It is these two functions of the two minerals that make “the blue-and-green style” bear the connotation of immortality. Finally, I will use some works by professional painters and forgers to consolidate the above arguments. These professional paintings and forgeries, which I use as corroborations, were made under the influence of “an immortal vogue” in the 16th century. At that time, a number of Ming Dynasty Emperors were Daoist devotees who constantly sought immortality through making elixirs with minerals.

* This talk is co-sponsored by the Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia workshop.

 12:00pm | WB Hall | Room 207 

Rivi Handler-Spitz

(PhD Candidate, Comparative lit., University of Chicago)

“Book Proliferation, Fluctuation, and Falsification in Sixteenth Century China and France Viewed Through the Works of Li Zhi and Montaigne”

 * This is part of Chapter 2 of her dissertation, which is tentatively entitled “Diversity, Deception, and Discernment in the Late Sixteenth Century: A Comparative Study of Li Zhi’s A Book to Burn and Montaigne’s
Essays.”

Light lunch will be provided.

4:00pm – 6:00pm | CWAC | Room 152

Ping Foong

 (Assistant Professor from Art History Department, University of Chicago)
 
“The Ritual Context for Painting in late Northern Song”

Abstract

This talk is on intersections in the arenas of ritual, politics, and painting in late-eleventh century China.  I will present my latest research on the responses of two artists to ritual debates of the late Northern Song dynasty: Guo Xi, leading court painter of ink landscapes and Li Gonglin, scholar-official and figure-painter.  From the mid-eleventh century, ritualists and officials deliberated over the role of the Song ancestors in state and imperial sacrifices at key ritual centers such as the Southern Suburb Round Mound, the Bright Hall, the Ancestral Temple, and the Temple of Spectacular Numina.  Arguments intensified during the divisive period of sweeping reformations under the reign of Emperor Shenzong, and again after his death when the reformations were repealed.  Focusing on two surviving masterworks “Early Spring” by Guo Xi and “The Classic of Filial Piety” by Li Gonglin from this period, I will show how these painters demonstrated the ways in which the visual medium could engage in the conversation with erudition, contemporary relevance, and political delicacy.

*This talk will be co-sponsored by the Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia Workshop.

3:30pm – 6:30pm | Cobb Hall | Room 310 (Film Studies Center)    

 Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategies

Zhiqu Weihu shan 智取威虎山

1970, jingju, model work, starring Tong Xiangling 童祥苓

           Prefatory presentation: Zhang Ling

 Guest Speakers: Professor Xie Boliang 

                          Professor Hao Yinbai

Prof. Xie will also give a speech on the growth of the discipline of Chinese music drama studies 中国戏曲学学科的建设与发展.   

  4:00pm| Harper Memorial | Room 125

Suyoung Son

(PhD Candidate, EALC, University of Chicago)

“Print and Literary Marketplace: Zhang Chao and His Circulation of Printed Collectanea in Seventeenth-Century China”

4:30pm | CWAC 152

Julia K. Murray
(Professor in the Department of Art History at University of Wisconsin-Madison)

“Where Did the ‘Standard Portrait’ of Confucius Come From?”

Abstract:
 
Large sculptures of metal or stone that depict Confucius as a venerable elder have become a common sight in mainland China, as well as in other places around the globe.  The first wave of statues appeared after a 1974 conference sponsored by the Taiwan government, which identified an image to promote as most representative of the ancient sage.  However, early in 2006, the mainland’s China Confucius Foundation initiated a new effort to standardize the visual representation of Confucius, and its version was unveiled in Qufu that September.  Both versions were based to a greater or lesser extent on a portrayal allegedly painted by the Tang artist Wu Daozi, which was well-known from rubbings.  My presentation will trace the origins and evolution of this image and discuss its significance in a variety of historical contexts.

This event will be co-sponsored by Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia workshop.

Please download the two articles (in Chinese) regarding the two films we are watching on Tue, Oct. 28.  They are recommended by our student presenter Zhang Ling.

1) mei-lanfang-yu-kunqu.pdf

2) xu-jichuan.doc

Download the paper: zeitlin_workshop_draft.pdf

4:30pm | Cobb Hall | Room 402

The Cultural Biography of a Musical Instrument: “Little Hulei” as sounding object, antique, prop, and relic

Judith Zeitlin is Professor in Chinese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.

Discussant: Fei-Hsien Wang (Ph. D. Candidate in History)

Abstract:  

This essay traces the complex history of a rare musical instrument to consider the ways in which the cultural status and meanings of a thing change over time and are shaped by its representation in different media. My narrative centers on two notable collectors who went to extraordinary lengths to document the importance of this “biographical object” in their life and work: Kong Shangren 孔尚任 (1648-1718), who wrote his first play Xiao Hulei chuanqi 小忽雷傳奇in 1694 to commemorate this prized possession and the publisher Liu Shiheng 劉世珩 (1875-1926), who later acquired the instrument and published the play in 1919 as part of his Nuanhongshi 暖紅室 drama series. My particular focus are the elaborate forms of literary, theatrical, visual, and printed display that the two men adopted to express the relationship of owner to thing and the relationship of thing to the cultural heritage at large. In so doing, I follow the instrument’s transformation from yiwu, a “left-over thing” from the dynastic past inspiring an emotional response of regret and nostalgia, to its current position as a wenwu, “a cultural relic” under the custody and protection of a state museum.   

This event will be co-sponsored by The Art and Politics in East Asia workshop.