CHINA HERITAGE QUARTERLY China Heritage Project, The Australian National University ISSN 1833-8461
No. 13, March 2008

FOCUS ON

Zhai, the Scholar's Studio

Guest Editors
John Minford and Claire Roberts

In this the thirteenth issue of China Heritage Quarterly we focus on the Studio—zhai, shuzhai, shufang—the scholar-writer’s place of creative engagement with the written word, or artistic practice. Studios, their names and locations are central to the persona of literary figures in dynastic China. They are also a feature of the intellectual landscape of modern Chinese scholarship, and even of politics.

In this issue we discuss elements of the traditional Studio, and how they have been transmogrified in modern times. John Minford reflects on the complex legacies of the scholars' studio in the context of his work on Pu Songling, the master of the Liao Studio and author of Liaozhai zhiyi, a modern ci-lyric poet, and Wanyan Linqing, a Bannerman noble of the nineteenth century. Claire Roberts introduces us to the history, and the fate, of George E. Morrison’s extraordinary library that was once located on Wangfujing Street in central Beijing. She also considers the crucial role of studios, and their names, in the history of two leading twenthieth-century Chinese artists, Huang Binhong and Li Keran. The Features section of this issue closes with an account of the artist-writer-translator Feng Zikai's studio, Yuanyuan Hall, and its fate.

The Studio would often be inside or connected to a library and so, in the Articles section of this issue, Duncan Campbell discusses two of the most famous late-dynastic libraries (cangshu lou), while Gloria Davies reflects on the virtual libraries of China’s modern netizens. In this section we also include John Minford's discussion of Lionel Giles and his relevance to our own continuing articulation of New Sinology.

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