As part of the Asian Studies Initiative’s Spring 2011 Conference on the Silk Road, Prof. Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania, world-renowned literary scholar and archaeologist, will give a lecture entitled “The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Background of the Silk Road.”
A specialist on classical and medieval Chinese literature, Dunhuang excavations and manuscript culture, and early Chinese archaeology, and translator of such canonical pre-Qin texts as Sun Zi’s The Art of War and the Daodejing, Prof. Mair has spent his life teaching the culture and history of premodern China. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including The Tarim Mummies, T’ang Transformation Texts, Painting and Performance, and The True History of Tea. He has also edited or co-edited numerous volumes, including Experimental Essays on Zhuangzi, Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, and the monumental An Alphabetical Index to the Hanyu Da Cidian (Great Dictionary of the Chinese Language).
Co-Sponsored by the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Initiative and Chinese Studies, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Prof. Mair’s presentation will also serve as the inaugural Annual Finn Lecture in Chinese Studies, sponsored in part by a generous donation from the Finn family.
Location: Washington 201