2020 - 2021 Schedule - Our 20th Anniversary Season!
Online Presentations
Welcome to our First Saturday PDX twentieth anniversary season, and our debut collection of online programs! The season starts 12 September, 2020 running through 5 June, 2021 - come join us on another voyage of discovery. Registration is required for each free event; available on the Upcoming Presentation page.
Stamp Collecting in 1950's China, The Chinese Textile Collection at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, The history of the Chile Pepper in China, Tales of a Female Rebel in 18th Century China,and Historical Tea Preparation and Consumption in China are all part of this season's schedule.
Stamp Collecting in 1950's China, The Chinese Textile Collection at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, The history of the Chile Pepper in China, Tales of a Female Rebel in 18th Century China,and Historical Tea Preparation and Consumption in China are all part of this season's schedule.
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Collecting Under Socialism: Philately in 1950's China
Wendy Larson, Ph.D. University of Oregon 12 September, 2020 Come with us as we explore the world of stamp collecting in Socialist China. China has a long history of collecting, including birds, insects, flowers, stamps, art, and later, Mao badges. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, collectors rethought their activities in the new political environment. In this talk, Dr. Wendy Larson introduces the contentious debates among stamp collectors in the 1950's, which focused on both the dangers and pleasures of the hobby. |
Chinese Art Collection at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
Anne Rose Kitagawa, M.A., Chief Curator of Collections and Asian Art
Director of Academic Programs
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon
3 October, 2020
We explore "Myriad Treasures," the inaugural installation in the newly refurbished Soreng Gallery of Chinese Art at the University of Oregon’s JSMA , featuring 113 objects spanning four millennia of Chinese history from the museum’s legacy collection along with a few exciting recent acquisitions.
Anne Rose Kitagawa, M.A., Chief Curator of Collections and Asian Art
Director of Academic Programs
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon
3 October, 2020
We explore "Myriad Treasures," the inaugural installation in the newly refurbished Soreng Gallery of Chinese Art at the University of Oregon’s JSMA , featuring 113 objects spanning four millennia of Chinese history from the museum’s legacy collection along with a few exciting recent acquisitions.
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The real Mulan? Tales of a female rebel in eighteenth century China
Cecily McCaffrey, Ph.D. Associate Professor of History Willliamette University 7 November, 2020 Join us for the discussion of a fascinating figure, the eighteenth century Chinese female rebel Wang Cong’er. In this talk, Dr. Cecily McCaffrey explores the accumulation of tales about Wang (who herself left no written record), considering in particular the moral overtones expressed in both imperial and contemporary writings – and asks whether the comparison to Mulan might be warranted. |
History of the Chile Pepper in China
Brian Dott, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Whitman College
5 December, 2020
We will see how the nonnative chile went from obscurity to ubiquity in China, influencing not just cuisine but also medicine, language, and cultural identity. Dr. Brian Dott tracks the cultural meaning of the chile across a wide swath of literary texts and artworks, revealing how the spread of chiles fundamentally altered the meaning of the term spicy. He emphasizes the intersection between food and gender, tracing the chile as a symbol for both male virility and female passion.
Brian Dott, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Whitman College
5 December, 2020
We will see how the nonnative chile went from obscurity to ubiquity in China, influencing not just cuisine but also medicine, language, and cultural identity. Dr. Brian Dott tracks the cultural meaning of the chile across a wide swath of literary texts and artworks, revealing how the spread of chiles fundamentally altered the meaning of the term spicy. He emphasizes the intersection between food and gender, tracing the chile as a symbol for both male virility and female passion.
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Early Chinese Settlements in Oregon
Chelsea Rose 9 January, 2020 In an effort to expand this research, we built a partnership with the Malheur National Forest allowing us to chase the Chinese miners that left Jacksonville following the gold strike on the John Day River in 1862. We also teamed up with the Medford District Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to track down the Chinese Railroad workers that built the Oregon and California Line, and with Oregon State Parks to unearth evidence of the John Day Chinatown that once surrounded the Kam Wah Chung & Co. museum. Other research partners include the Oregon Historical Society, the Southern Oregon Historical Society, and the Grant County Historical Museum. |
Welcoming the Year of the Ox 牛, 4719 and Celebrating 20 years of First Saturday
First Saturday PDX Planning Committee
6 February, 2021
We invite you to join First Saturday to welcome in the Lunar New Year 4719 with friends and share a celebratory meal. There will be items to be raffled and a silent auction, taking place at the Happy Dragon Restaurant. Please check here for details.
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Something interesting about Chinese Art
Ann Wetherell Williamette University 6 March, 2021 For ancient Chinese poets and the pious it was important to know how a word was to be read so it could be chanted aloud, either in verse or prayer. How did the Chinese indicate pronunciations of written words before the modern era of romanization and pronunciation guides? We will take a look at some early pronunciation tools employed to read Chinese characters." |
Chinese Art and the Global Eighteenth Century
Dawn Odell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Lewis & Clark College
3 April, 2021
This presentation explores the ways that issues of masculinity, taste, landed-ness, and commerce coalesce in the art collecting and display practices of an eighteenth-century Dutch immigrant to the early United States, Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest. Amassed in Guangzhou, presented in Philadelphia, and finally sold at a London auction in 1799, van Braam’s collection of Chinese art had long been thought lost. The recent rediscovery of works from the London sale not only provides tangible objects from which to re-imagine the nonextant parts of van Braam’s collection, but also prompts an exploration of terms such as “quality” and “authenticity” in the context of art intended for export. Van Braam’s art collection was well-known among eighteenth-century French refugees in Philadelphia, and his circle’s descriptions of the work present us with some of the earliest art historically inflected assessments of Chinese painting written by Europeans. I discuss those texts, and the paintings to which they respond, as part of an extended body of landscape imagery created in and negotiated between cosmopolitan port cities in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, arguing that van Braam’s display of Chinese art was both a local and global construct.
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Historical Tea Preparation and Consumption in China James Benn, Ph.D. McMaster University 1 May, 2021 Dr. Benn will explain how a bowl of tea was by no means a stable thing over the centuries. It looked, smelled, and tasted quite different depending on when and where it was made. We will explore different methods of making tea in premodern China, sharing famous works of tea literature, reading some poems, and looking at both rare and everyday examples of teaware. |
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History of Chinese Textiles in the UO JSAM
Anne Rose Kitagawa & Ina Asim 5 June, 2021 |
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The city of Xining in Qinghai Province is in the high altitude Tibetan Plateau of SW China. Explore an examination of the Chinese Xining dialect to reveal its unique features which are the result of its ethnolinguistic position at the crossroads between the Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian civilizations.
Our instructive program series is co-sponsored by PSU’s Institute for Asian Studies, and is free and open to the public. Our regular monthly location has an elevator and is wheelchair friendly with unrestricted viewing and tables for note taking. 9:30 - 11:00 am (click on address for directions):
Portland State University, Academic & Student Recreation Ctr (ASRC), Room 230
1800 SW 6th Ave, Portland OR 97201
Excellent MAX and bus transportation is right by the venue; plan your Trimet trip HERE. There is also a nearby parking structure at SW 6th and Harrison with an entrance on 6th Avenue is also available.
View PSU Parking info:
https://www.pdx.edu/transportation/hourly-visitor-parking
Portland State University, Academic & Student Recreation Ctr (ASRC), Room 230
1800 SW 6th Ave, Portland OR 97201
Excellent MAX and bus transportation is right by the venue; plan your Trimet trip HERE. There is also a nearby parking structure at SW 6th and Harrison with an entrance on 6th Avenue is also available.
View PSU Parking info:
https://www.pdx.edu/transportation/hourly-visitor-parking
