Speaker: Miki Kaneda, Music, Musicology, Boston University

What can graphic musical scores tell us about sounds yet to be heard, as well as the stories that may be told about their creators and their worlds? This talk examines two exhibitions of graphic scores, both held in Tokyo in 1962. Miki Kaneda offers a historical perspective on the role of graphic scores in locating Japan as a meeting place for a transnational avant-garde.

Faculty host: Andrew Campana, Asian Studies

Reading Adultery in the Criminal Records of Late Chosŏn Korea

Jisoo Kim, George Washington University

This presentation introduces the records of criminal cases in the Simnirok (Records of Royal Reviews), a collection compiled during the reign of Chŏngjo (r. 1776-1800). This collection includes 1,112 judicial precedents related to homicide, economic crimes such as counterfeit and theft, and social crimes such as arson and gravesite dispute. The majority of 1,004 crimes are related to homicide (964 cases) and suicide (40 cases). This presentation will first explain the source and translate the few selected homicide cases related to adultery. While translating the cases, it will also discuss sex crime in the context of eighteenth-century Korea.

CCCC is a reading group for students and scholars with an interest in premodern Sinographic text.

All are welcome, at any level of experience with classical Chinese. Please email us to register and receive the log-in credentials.

At each session, one participant presents a text in classical Chinese. Attendees discuss historical, literary, linguistic, and other aspects of the text, and work together to resolve difficulties in comprehension and translation.

Presentations include works of all sorts, from the earliest times to the twentieth century.

No preparation required: all texts will be distributed at the meeting.

In Search for a Cure: Trust and Social Inequality in Contemporary China

Presenter: Xisai Song, Ph.D. candidate, Anthropology

This paper unpacks how social inequality shapes patients’ trust in medicine in contemporary China. In particular, I examine how rural low-income patients struggle with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

ROUGH WORK: Discussing research in progress, hence the term, rough work. This rough work session is hosted by the East Asia Program's Graduate Student Steering Committee (GSSC).

"Bones, Brains, and Meridians: Animated Anatomy and Image-Text Analysis"is the title of this Classical Chinese text-reading with Lan Li of Rice University.

"Bones, Brains, and Meridians: Animated Anatomy and Image-Text Analysis"

This discussion interrogates the representation of the brain in a 1956 reproduction of the early modern print Zang Fu Mingtang Tu 臟腑明堂圖. Despite its vague genealogy, this 20th century version of Zang Fu Mingtang Tu 臟腑明堂圖 was often associated with either a set of meridian maps from the early fourteenth century, or with an even earlier set of Inner Canon (neijing 內經) or Inner Vision (neijing 內景) treatises. What is curious about this image are the inscriptions in the head, which read: “The ocean of Yin bone marrow penetrates all the way down” 髄海至隂之在通尾骶. This suggests that inside the head/brain through the spine/back was bone marrow, not the brain--that inside the skull was not a wet, chunky lump of grey matter, but suihai 髓海 or “bone marrow sea,” which was one of the “four seas” listed in the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Cannon. By bringing together approaches in the history of medicine, art history, and science studies, this discussion opens a visual and philological study to understand the ontological implications of the brain in 臟腑明堂圖. What kinds of things were solid? What kinds of things were fluid? Was the distinction between solid and fluid a matter of scale? A matter of relative movements? How does this elaborate on the history of anatomy in classical Chinese texts?

All are welcome, with any level of experience with classical Chinese.

At each session, a participant presents a classical Chinese text. Attendees discuss historical, literary, linguistic, and other aspects of the text, working together to resolve difficulties in comprehension and translation.

No preparation is required, all texts will be distributed at the meeting.

Presenter: Tinakrit Sireerat, Ph.D. candidate, Asian Studies, Cornell

This paper is a reassessment of the claim that the natural environment of Hokkaido is ideal for livestock production.

ROUGH WORK: Discussing research in progress, hence the term, rough work. This rough work session is hosted by the East Asia Program's Graduate Student Steering Committee (GSSC).