Women in the History of Tea in China
James Benn, PhD
1 April, 2023      ​
​9:30 am - 11:00 am, PT
Join First Saturday PDX as we explore the fact that women are often entirely absent from historical accounts of tea culture in China, yet that absence defies common sense. Women in premodern China, picked and processed tea leaves, they prepared and served tea for themselves or for others, they designed important items of teaware, and they designed rituals around tea preparation and consumption. In this talk, Dr Benn will look at the surviving sources from the Tang dynasty onwards in order to reveal a more balanced portrayal of women in the history of Chinese tea.
About the speaker:
James A. Benn (PhD UCLA 2001) is Professor of Buddhism and East Asian Religions at McMaster University and Director of the McMaster University Centre for Buddhist Studies. He studies Buddhism and Daoism in medieval China. He has published on self-immolation, spontaneous human combustion, Buddhist apocryphal scriptures, and tea and alcohol in medieval China in journals such as History of Religions, T’oung Pao, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. He is the author of Burning for the Buddha: Self-immolation in Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007) and Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007).  An authorised translation of Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History in Chinese is now available.  Professor Benn is currently working on a translation and study of the Śūramgama sutra, a Chinese Buddhist apocryphon.
For more information:  https://www.jamesabenn.ca/
Suggested References:

Cary Y. Liu. “Calligraphic Couplets as Manifestations of Deities and Markers of Buildings.” In Harrist, Robert E., and Wen. Fong. The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection. Princeton, N.J: Art Museum, Princeton University in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1999, 360–379.
 
Jan Surat, “A Scholar's Garden in Ming China: Dream and Reality,” Asian Art 3, no. 4 (1990): 30-51.
 
Craig Clunas. Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
 
Amy McNair. “The Engraved Model-Letters Compendia of the Song Dynasty.” Journal of the American Oriental Society114, no. 2 (1994): 209–225.


​Join us after the webinar from 11 - 11:30am in our First Saturday PDX Tea House to further the discussion and online social time.  Bring a cup of tea! 
​(Separate  access link for this will be provided in your single registration for this event.)
Our program series is supported by Portland State University's Institute for Asian Studies, Northwest China Council, Portland Chinatown Museum, and Lan Su Chinese Garden.   All our programs are free and open to the public.