Mapping Memory via Ancestral Tablets ​
K.E. Brashier, PhD
Thomas Lamb Eliot Professor of Religion (emeritus), Reed College
16 May, 2026   Please note change in date to the THIRD Saturday of the month
9:30 - 11 am 

Ancestor worship anchors Chinese culture, its wooden tablets having spread across East Asia over two millennia. But what did the tablet do? Did this material thing replace the ethereal ancestor? Or did it mark where the invited ancestor sat, as if it were a reservation card for dinner? Or did it literally house the ancestor who flowed into it via bespoke holes?  First Saturday PDX and Reed College invite you and all descendants and ancestors to this talk with K.E. Brashier who shares his new research about the prescriptions and practices that inform this iconic tradition.  With texts, as-yet-unpublished images of numerous ancestral tablets and paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries in China, and actual tablets, K.E. Brashier will examine the options and simultaneously explore how material things shape – and aren’t just shaped by – religion.
*REGISTER HERE by 15 May noon
About the speaker:  
K.E. Brashier received his BA from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, his MA from Harvard, and his PhD from Cambridge, after which he taught Chinese religions (eventually as the Thomas Lamb Eliot Professor of Religion and Humanities) at Reed College from 1998 until his retirement in 2021. Author of Ancestral Memory in Early China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2011) and Public Memory in Early China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2014), et al, he is currently studying the idea of hell in late imperial China. In 2006, he was recognized as the national "Outstanding Baccalaureate Colleges Professor of the Year" by the CASE/Carnegie Foundation, but his chief goal in life remains a futile attempt to get his three cats to respect him.​
​For those interested in continuing the conversation, there will be a no host lunch family style with the speaker at a Chinese restaurant afterwards.  Please let us know if you are joining when you register for the program so that we can make the proper arrangements.
Check-in begins promptly at 9:15am

Registration required 
​**This is an on-site presentation. 
Reed College, Psychology Building, R105 Auditorium
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202
The large East Parking Lot (free) is conveniently located nearby, see campus map here
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Public transportation is available, plan your TriMet trip HERE.  
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​We recommend that attendees be vaccinated and boosted, and follow CDC guidelines regarding masking.
Our program series is supported by Reed College, Northwest China Council, Lan Su Chinese Garden, PSU's IAS, and Portland Chinatown Museum.   
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​All our programs are free and open to the public.  ​