Terracotta figures, gilt-bronze lamps and other artifacts of the Chinese past are often viewed without regard to the social and economic context of their creation, yet they were made by real individuals who contributed greatly to the early Chinese society and economy. During this talk, Professor Barbieri-Low will refocus our gaze from the glittering objects and monuments of China to the men and women who made them. Understanding these lives and the complex social, commercial, and technological networks they participated in will allow us to humanize the material remains of the past and provide insights into broader issues of gender, social status, literacy, and marketing structures.
Anthony Barbieri-Low obtained his B.A. in Asian History from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard, before earning his Ph.D. from Princeton University, in Chinese Art and Archaeology. Since 2001, he has been Assistant Professor of Early Chinese History at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2002 to 2005, he collaborated with Michael Nylan of Berkeley and Cary Liu of Princeton on the exhibition, Recarving China's Past, to which he contributed a virtual-reality computer reconstruction of the Wu Family Shrines site in Shandong Province. His forthcoming book, Artisans in Early Imperial China, will be published by the University of Washington Press in early 2007.