MARCH 1

Down the Cultural Crosswords: The Chinese Dialect of Xining
Keith Dede, Ph.D.

Qinghai Province is in the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau, a cultural crossroads where Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian civilizations have interacted for centuries. How has this unique ethno-geographic situation influenced the development of the Chinese language spoken in the region? What do the present linguistic and cultural observations tell us about ethnic relationships over the years? Join First Saturday PDX as we explore these and other questions in a presentation by Dr. Keith Dede about this fascinating corner of modern China.

Keith Dede received his PhD in 1999 from the University of Washington. As Professor of Chinese and Chinese Section Head at Lewis & Clark College, he specializes in Chinese language and linguistics, specifically the languages and culture of Qinghai Province in northwest China.  He has written about the history of language contact in Qinghai, especially the influence of Tibetan and Mongolic languages on the development of local varieties of Chinese. He has also written about the effects of the changing socio-cultural ecology on the languages of the region, and how Standard Chinese interacts with the local languages. Ancillary interests include the history of Standard Chinese and its relationship to the dialects, Chinese language teaching, and modern Chinese literature and film.

APRIL 5

Chinese "Paintings of Beautiful Women" and their Global Circulation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Professor Dawn Odell

The category of meiren hua (paintings of beautiful women) has a long tradition in Chinese art. Join First Saturday PDX in this presentation as Professor Dawn Odell discusses some of the origins (literary and visual) of the genre and then explain the ways that these images circulated beyond Asia.  As "global" objects, paintings of beautiful women often took on surprising forms and were created in innovative media, including paintings on mirrored glass. This talk aims to explain the role of "beautiful women paintings" within the homosocial worlds of port cities such as Guangzhou and Macao. 

Dawn Odell received her BA from Carleton College, her MA in East Asian studies from Harvard University, and her PhD in art history from the University of Chicago. She teaches courses on early modern European and Asian art at Lewis & Clark College. She is currently writing a book about an eighteenth-century merchant (A.E. van Braam Houckgeest), the global port cities in which he lived, and the extraordinary collection of Chinese art he amassed and dispersed during his lifetime. 

 MAY 10

Remembering the Dead in Late Medieval China (7th–10th c.)
Alexei Ditter, Ph.D

Come join First Saturday PDX in this talk which focuses on collaborative remembering that occurred during the production of the late medieval Chinese entombed epitaph (muzhiming 墓誌銘), an important form of funerary epigraphy. Entombed epitaphs are square stone slabs that were inscribed, in prose and verse, with an account of the character and experiences of the deceased. Different objectives—personal, social, political, and commercial—that shaped the content of the epitaph text will be discussed by Dr. Alexei Ditter.

Alexei Kamran Ditter (Ph.D., Princeton) is Professor of Chinese and Humanities at Reed College. His research explores interactions between social and textual practices in late medieval Chinese literature, focusing on questions of place, genre, and memory. His publications include articles and book chapters on twentieth-century literary histories of the Tang, civil examinations and cover letters in late-eighth-century China, conceptions of urban space in Duan Chengshi’s 9th c. Records of Monasteries and Stupas, and the commercialization of funerary writing in the mid- to late-Tang. A strong believer in collaborative and cross-disciplinary research, in recent years he has co-edited two volumes of translations: with Jessey J.C. Choo and Sarah M. Allen, Tales from Tang China: Selections from the Taiping guangji (Hackett, 2017) and with Xiao Rao, Laughter, Humor, and Comedy in Middle Period China, 600-1400 (Amsterdam UP, under review). He is currently working on a monograph studying collaborative remembering in late medieval China and finalizing, with Jessey J.C. Choo, an anthology of late medieval entombed epitaphs.

All events are free and open to the public, followed by a no-host Chinese lunch with the speaker. Please register here.