Join the Department of History and the Asian Studies Center for Non-Producing Skills in Early Modern East Asia: Skill-Material-Knowledge Entanglements beyond Innovative Production.

Questions to be explored: How did everyday skills and material lifecycles coevolve and what are the characteristics of the knowledge that stemmed therefrom? How should we approach ascribing modern – and Western – techno-material categories and values onto early modern East Asia? What are some methodological foundations for an interdisciplinary study of material culture, ecology, and the history of science, technology, and medicine? And finally, how can early modern East Asian experiences contribute to narratives of the history of science and technology in general?

Schedule of Events Day 1

Welcome | 9:10  – 9:20 a.m. Yulian Wu, Michigan State University

Keynote | 9:30 – 10:30 p.m.  Susan Naquin, Professor Emerita, Princeton University

Panel 1 | Productive Failure 10:40 a.m – 12:30 p.m.

John Lee, Durham University Sylvan Legacies: Pine as Policy and Problem in Chosŏn Korea

Joshua Schlachet, University of Arizona Cooking Delicacies, Failing Bodies: Kaiseki Cuisine as a Non-Producing Skill in Early Modern Japanese Dietetics

Discussant: Jakobina Arch, Whitman College

Panel 2 | Recycling Regimes 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Anna Grasskamp, University of St. Andrews Transcultural Upcycling: Sino-European Patterns of Reuse

Yulian Wu, Michigan State University Resourceful Use of Resource: Jade Reuse in the Qing Dynasty

Yuhang Li, University of Wisconsin-Madison Between New and Old: Rethinking the Ephemerality of Theatrical Objects at Qing Court

Discussant: Dorothy Ko, Barnard College, Columbia University

Roundtable 1 | 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Sponsored by Asian Studies Center and the Department of History