Westerners & the Qing Imperial Court Symposium
October 17-19, 2008, Beijing

The Ricci Institute is pleased to announce its upcoming symposium, “Interaction and Exchange at the Imperial Court: Westerners and the Qing (1644-1911),” to be held in Beijing at Renmin University on October 17-19, 2008. The symposium will provide a forum for an interdisciplinary examination of the interaction between Westerners and the Qing court with the aim of creating a more nuanced and balanced reconstruction of this historical contact. The symposium is intended to broaden our understanding of the breadth of Westerners interacting with the Qing court as well as the perspectives of all of the historical actors involved, both Chinese and Western. Topics addressed at the conference will include: scientific and artistic exchange, gender, social class and status groups, race and ethnicity, diplomacy, transmission of knowledge, rituals and ceremony, material culture, economics, imperialism and semi-colonialism, etc. Ultimately, the project will add to our knowledge of cultural interaction during the late imperial period in China.

Cosponsored by the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim, the Qing History Institute, Renmin University, China, and The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies.