Talk by Xiuyuan Mi presenting Poetry from Pottery: The Crafting of Atemporal Worlds in North China, 1100–1400
Friday, January 20, 2023, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Humanities Gateway 1010
How could poetry be circulated in popular circles? Why would the less educated populace want poetry in their everyday life? Based on a study of 336 samples of inscribed stoneware found in North China, this talk reconstructs the diffusion of poetry in quotidian practices between the 12th and the 14th century. Highlighting poetry’s independence from the elite-dominated literary field, it shows that the poetic decorations, the majority of which appear on pillows and drinking vessels, unite dream, drunkenness, and stage as a tripartite space of anti-reality, which activated alternative spheres of values through the objects. Xiuyuan Mi is a lecturer at the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work lies at the intersections of critical poetics, book history, urban studies, and material culture. Her recent publications appear in the Journal of SongYuan Studies and Sino-Platonic Papers. She is also a co-editor of the Dictionary of Medieval Sinitic, forthcoming with Brill.