East-West Text Technologies Research Trip to Shanghai

Written in ink, parchment, paper, wood, and stone, the materials and transmission of text has captured scholarly attention around the globe. This spring, CESTA faculty and graduate students joined scholars at Fudan University, Shanghai, for the second International Conference on Medieval-Early Modern Text Technologies (March 29-31). This year’s theme, “From Manuscript to Print: Medieval Europe and China,” invited participants to explore and connect these dual traditions.
 

Scholars from CESTA and Fudan University in Shanghai


CESTA director Professor Elaine Treharne joined Professor Chen Yinchi (Fudan) in welcoming scholars to this transhistorical conversation. Participants investigated topics ranging from Chinese epitaphs to Christian liber vitae, letter writing, scribal and calligraphic cultures, and the global appearance of print. Advanced graduate students and CESTAfellows Jonathan Quick and Jessica Beckman gave papers on their current research, while Likun Yang and Yafang Bao provided tour-de-force translation of conference discussions in English and Chinese.

The conference was the second organized by the East-West Text Technologies Research Project, a multi-year investigation into the global history of text technologies. Conceived by Professors Ron Egan and Elaine Treharne, these events generate an innovative and multi-disciplinary body of work about the history of human communication.

The conference was generously supported by Department of Chinese at Fudan University, as well as Stanford’s Confucius Institute, Dean of Research, Departments of English and East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Stanford Text Technologies.