Event Details

WHAT: "Love, Libel, Literature and Loss: the tribulations of the distinguished family of Chen Yuan and Ling Shuhua in 20th-century China," an RASBJ online talk by Frances Wood



WHEN: Thursday August 31, 7.00-8.00 PM, Beijing time (NOTE: the day of the online talk is THURSDAY, not Wednesday)



ABOUT THE EVENT: The story of the distinguished writer Ling Shuhua (1900-1990) and her affair with Julian Bell (1908-1937) is well known, involving Virginia Woolf and a more recent lawsuit in China. Her husband Chen Yuan (1898-1970) neglected by Shuhua, has also been neglected by historians but the recent publication of some of his diaries reveals much about the man, his family and his devotion to culture. He spent the period 1943-1946 in England, trying to set up a Sino-British Cultural Centre before he was appointed to represent China in UNESCO. His diaries present an extraordinarily detailed account of wartime London, with his almost daily visits to the theatre, sleep disturbed by nightly V-bombs and endless meetings with everyone from J.B. Priestley to Arthur Waley and Harold Laski. The talk will be moderated by Melinda Liu.


MORE BACKGROUND: This family had resided in a traditional Beijing mansion, two courtyards of which were restored to become today's Shijia Hutong Museum. Located at #24 Shijia Hutong, it's well worth a visit, featuring displays, photographs, material objects and detailed bilingual captions about prominent individuals and entities linked to this historic hutong.



ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Frances Wood studied Chinese at Cambridge and at Beida (Peking University). She was curator of the Chinese collections in the British Library for 30 years with a special interest in Dunhuang manuscripts.



HOW MUCH: This online event is free for members of RASBJ; RMB 50 for members of RAS branches; RMB 100 for non-members. Interested in becoming an RASBJ member? Please sign up at https://rasbj.org/membership​



HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: Please click "Register" or "I Will Attend" and follow the instructions. After successful registration you'll receive a confirmation email with a link to join the event. If you seem not to have received it, please check your spam folder.

Members of partner RAS branches: Please register at least 72 hours in advance to allow time for membership verification; you'll receive several emails from RASBJ: one confirming your registration request, another requesting payment, and a third confirming your registration with a link to join the event. Please check your spam folder to ensure you see all RASBJ emails.

If you experience difficulty paying via Wechat, please try Alipay instead. We hope to "see" you there!

Speakers

  • Frances Wood (Speaker)

    Frances Wood

    Speaker

    Frances Wood studied Chinese at Cambridge and at Beida (Peking University). She was curator of the Chinese collections in the British Library for 30 years with a special interest in Dunhuang manuscripts. She is author of “Hand-Grenade Practice in Peking: my part in the Cultural Revolution” (John Murray, 2000) and a number of other publications, including:
    • 1985 Chinese illustration. British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-0053-7
    • 1991 (with Norah M. Titley). Oriental Gardens. British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-0239-5
    • 1995 Did Marco Polo go to China?. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 978-0-436-20384-8
    • 1998 No Dogs and Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port Life in China, 1843-1943. John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-6400-0
    • 2002 The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23786-5
    • 2005 The Forbidden City. British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-2789-7
    • 2007 The First Emperor of China. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-84668-032-8
    • 2008 China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-38112-7
    • 2009 The Lure of China: Writers from Marco Polo to J. G. Ballard. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15436-8
    • 2010 (with Mark Barnard). The Diamond Sutra: The Story of the World's Earliest Dated Printed Book. British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-5090-7
    • 2017 Great Books of China. Head of Zeus. ISBN 9781786694515

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