Columbia University,
403 Kent Hall
The Huang and Lin Fund from the Program in Chinese Literature and Culture, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and the C. V. Starr East Asian Library
To celebrate the Release of Dorothy Ko’s book, The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China, the author will be in conversation with Pamela Smith (Seth Low Professor of History, Columbia University) and Jonathan Hay (Ailsa Mellon Bruce Professor of Art History, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU) on art, technology, and material culture in China and Europe.
Dorothy Ko’s book brings new awareness to the inkstone as a collectible object of art and a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states. As an inscriptional surface on which texts and images are carved and reproduced, how did this object become entangled with elite masculinity in the culture ofwen(literature; civility) in China, Korea, and Japan for over a millennium? Is there an explanation as to why such a ubiquitous object across East Asia remains virtually unknown in Europe and America?
This event is free, and open to the public.
