BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Department of Asian Studies//NONSGML Events//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://asia.ubc.ca/events/event/
X-WR-CALDESC:Department of Asian Studies - Events
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:20250314T2302Z-1741993358.7776-EO-65160-18@10.19.146.22
STATUS:CONFIRMED
DTSTAMP:20260907T083137Z
CREATED:20250314T210327Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250314T223948Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250410
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250412
SUMMARY: 2024/25 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture: Journey into Exile: The R
are Books of the National Peiping Library\, 1933–1941
DESCRIPTION: The 2024/25 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture with guest speaker
Professor Sophie Volpp (UC Berkeley) Lecture: Journey into Exile: The Rare
Books of the National Peiping Library\, 1933–1941 In fall of 1941\, the Na
tional Library of Peiping\, now the National Library of China\, sent 100 cr
ates of rare books to the Library of Congress […]
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html: [image_spread img_url="https://asia.cms.ar
ts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2025/03/WEBSITE-FEATURED-24.25-Wat-Le
cture.png" caption="" width="website"]
<
strong>The 2024/25 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture
wi
th guest speaker Professor Sophie Volpp (UC Berkeley)
Lectu
re: Journey into Exile: The Rare Books of the National Peiping Library\, 19
33–1941
In fall of 1941\, the National Library of Peiping\, now the
National Library of China\, sent 100 crates of rare books to the Library of
Congress and the University of California for safe keeping. These books we
re the rarest of the rare\, many from the Ming dynasty imperial library. Th
ey had been hidden in Shanghai since 1933\, when the Ministry of Education
ordered them to be safeguarded from Japanese troops. The shipment of these
books to the United States in 1941 took place just weeks before Pearl Harbo
r and was the result of a year of increasingly fraught negotiation between
the National Library\, the Ministry of Education\, and the Department of St
ate.
In this research\, I pair the published letters between the prin
cipal figures in this negotiation—Hu Shih\, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S.\
; Wang Zhongmin\, bibliographer of the National Library\; and Yuan Tung Li\
, Director of the National Library—with unpublished files from the archives
of the Department of State as well as the University of California. I piec
e together the story of why the shipment of these rare books encountered su
ch perilous delay\, how they finally made it to the United States\, and ask
what it might mean for rare books to be in exile.
Date & Time:
Thursday
\, April 10\, 2025
Reception: 5:00pm-6:00pm (PDT)
Lecture: 6:00pm
-8:00pm (PDT)
Loca
tion:
Asian Centre Auditorium\, 1871 West Mall\, Vanco
uver
(view map
)
Presented in English
Free & open to the public
[buttons][button link_text="Register for the Main Lec
ture" link_url="https://asia.ubc.ca/events/event/2024-25-yip-so-man-wat-mem
orial-lecture/#event-form1"][/buttons]
Events in Conjun
ction
Research Seminar: Why Should W
e Care About Literary Objects?
It seems self-evident that we
should care about historical objects that bear the marks of use. But why sh
ould we care about literary objects? In this seminar\, I take as a case stu
dy the relation between Cao Xueqin’s mid-eighteenth-century novel The St
ory of the Stone and the scenic illusion paintings (tongjing hua) of th
e Forbidden City. Scholars of Chinese art history have understood these pai
ntings to be mimetic and described them as employing a monofocal perspectiv
alism that creates a three-dimensional verisimilitude.
In this semina
r\, we will consider the way in which The Story of the Stone itself
thinks of perspectivalism\, and use that information to reread both chapter
41 of The Story of the Stone and the scenic illusion paintings. Ult
imately\, this work will help us to rethink the conceptions of verisimilitu
de as well as mimetic illusion. How can the metamorphosis of space—and in
particular the dynamic appearance and disappearance of recessionary spaces—
help us reconceptualize the problem of reference? How can it help us recons
ider the relation of vernacular fiction to the world beyond its pages?
<
p>Date & Time:<
/span>
Friday\, April 11\, 2025
2:00pm – 4:00pm (PDT)Location:
Asian Centre Auditorium\, 1871 West Mall\, Vancouver
(view map)
Presented in Eng
lish
Free & open to the public
A reading to prepare in a
dvance will be circulated to participants who RSVP.
[buttons][button link_text="Register for the Researc
h Seminar" link_url="https://asia.ubc.ca/events/event/2024-25-yip-so-man-wa
t-memorial-lecture/#event-form2"][/buttons]
Speaker
Sophie Volpp is professor of East As
ian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature\, and Faculty Chair o
f the Center for Chinese Studies\, at the University of California\, Berkel
ey. She works primarily on Chinese literature of the 16th throug
h 19th centuries. She is the author of Worldly Stage: Theatri
cality in Seventeenth-Century China (Harvard\, 2011) and of The Subs
tance of Fiction: Literary Objects in China\, 1550-1775 (Columbia\, 202
2)\, and has translated the work of pre-modern women poets and dramatists.<
/p>
About the Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture
The Yip So Ma
n Wat Memorial Lectures are made possible by the generous support of Messrs
. Alex and Chi Shum Watt in honour of their mother\, the late Mrs. Wat\, an
d her passion for Chinese literature and culture.
[buttons][button li
nk_text="View previous lectures" link_url="https://asia.ubc.ca/lecture-seri
es/yip-so-man-wat-lecture-in-chinese-studies/"][/buttons]
[gravityform id="134"
title="true" description="true"]