Modern History Seminar
In this series, scholars present their works-in-progress on topics concerning the Qing dynasty to the present. The seminars introduce the research of young scholars in the region and innovative projects being conducted by mid-career scholars.

China Humanities Seminar
Covering the whole span of Chinese experience predating the modern era, the China Humanities Seminar addresses all aspects of Chinese civilization—literature, history, philosophy, religion, art history, and the performing arts.


Friday, November 13, 2009   4:15 pm

Bleached Bones and Unclaimed Corpses: Burying the Dead in Post-Taiping Jiangnan
Tobie Meyer-Fong, associate professor of history, Johns Hopkins University

Professor Meyer-Fong will consider the question of dead bodies—how they were disposed of and what they were understood to mean—under the terrifying circumstance of a civil war and its aftermath. What did people write about the dead from the Taiping War? What meanings did their corpses engender, and what kinds of description did they command? By extension: did the dead from this war take on particular significance—or were they understood through long-standing conventions and anxieties regarding death, violent, and otherwise. Professor Meyer-Fong will focus on coffins (lost and recovered), atrocities, the disposition of corpses, and the construction of cemeteries to accommodate the war dead.

Tobie Meyer-Fong, an associate professor in the History Department at Johns Hopkins, received her BA from Yale University and her PhD from Stanford University. She is currently working on a book about the cultural and social impact of the Taiping rebellion. Professor Meyer-Fong's first book, Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou, deals with the construction of cultural landmarks and the re-creation of elite identities in the city of Yangzhou after the Manchu conquest. She is co-editor of the journal Late Imperial China and is currently involved in the National Committee for US-China Relations' Public Intellectuals Program.

Location: Knafel, 1737 Cambridge Street, Room K262, Cambridge, MA
Contact: lkluz@fas.harvard.edu

 

 

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