Victor Mair, Stanford Distinguished Professor

The Tarim Basin Mummies, a Stanford Distinguished Professor Lecture with Victor Mair at 7 pm on February 20, 2014

By UM News 02-06-2014

The College of Arts and Sciences Center for the Humanities presents Victor Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. Mair specializes in Buddhist popular literature as well as the vernacular tradition of Chinese fiction and the performing arts. In the 1990s, Professor Mair organized an interdisciplinary research project on the Bronze Age and Iron Age mummies of Eastern Central Asia. His work during this period resulted in, among other things, three documentaries for television and a book, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (2000). This lecture will take place at the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Gallery / Wesley Foundation, 1210 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146 and is free to the public. RSVP through the Center for the Humanities website at http://goo.gl/OYrwsL.

A 9th-Century Shipwreck and its Implications for the History of Tea

Wednesday February 19, 2014
— 4:30pm

Lowe Art Museum
1301 Stanford Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146
REGISTER HERE

In 1998, a shipwreck was discovered by fishermen just off the coast of Belitung Island in the Gelasa Strait between Sumatra and Borneo. The wreck dates to around 830 and constitutes the single most significant collection of archeologically recovered materials from the Tang Dynasty. One of the most surprising finds in the cargo was a bowl that tells us an enormous amount about the history o

The Tarim
Basin Mummies

Thursday February 20, 2014 — 7:00pm

CAS Gallery
1210 Stanford Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146

REGISTER HERE

The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age mummies that have been unearthed from around the edges of the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang, China) count as one of the most important archeological discoveries of the 20th and 21st centuries. These extremely well preserved human remains and the artifacts associated with them provide an immense amount of valuable information about the cultures, languages, physical attributes, and migration patterns of Eurasian peoples in late prehistory.

“[The Tarim Mummies is] a major contribution to the history and archaeology of a remote and little
known part of the world.”
— Brian Fagan, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara

“[The Tarim Mummies is] fascinating and well researched... certain to prove controversial.”
— Colin Renfrew, Senior Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
University of Cambridge

What Is A Classic?

The Concept of "Classic" in China: Philological and Philosophical Reflections

with interventions by Classics Professors
John Paul Russo, Wilson Shearin, and Han Tran

Friday, February 21, 2014 — 3:00 PM

CAS Gallery
1210 Stanford Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146

Inasmuch as the various dynasties that ruled over what is now known as "China" during the past two millennia and more subscribed to Confucianism as the primary orthodoxy for principles of government and morality, the "classics" upon which these principles were founded are of enormous importance for understanding their origins and nature. The concept of "classic" will also be compared to the notion of "scripture" and "canon".