Lecture by the Confucius Institute at Arizona State University: Talents and Beauties

Lecture by the Confucius Institute at Arizona State University: Talents and Beauties—The Archaeological Interpretation of the Legend of Tang Dynasty "The Legend of Li Wa" November 4, 2012…

Lecture by the Confucius Institute at Arizona State University: Talents and Beauties—The Archaeological Interpretation of the Legend of Tang Dynasty's "The Legend of Li Wa" On November 4, 2012, the College of Humanities at Arizona State University and the Confucius Institute at Arizona State University were honored to invite Professor Qi Dongfang from the School of Archeology and Museology at Peking University to give a lecture at Arizona State University entitled "Gifts and Beauties - Archaeological Interpretation of the Tang Legend "Li Wa"". This lecture will be held on Sunday, November 4th at 1:00 pm in Room 60, School of Humanities, Arizona State University (LL Building Floor Basement Room 60 http://www.asu.edu/map/interactive/?campus=tempe&building=LL). This lecture is in Chinese and is free and open to the people of Arizona. The general public is welcome to come and participate in this rich cultural feast. As we all know, "talented scholars and beautiful ladies" are the most ideal and wonderful combination of marriage between men and women in traditional Chinese culture. The characters' appearances, costumes, props, scenes, environments, spaces, etc. described in the Tang Dynasty's legendary novel "The Story of Li Wa" retain many materials from life at that time. This story takes love and human relationships as its themes, and expresses human nature through the characters' lives and circumstances, which is romantic. It has a strong sense of reality and clear contemporary character in character creation; in terms of narrative structure, it presents a network of intertwined scenes. The story takes place in Chang'an City, so the novel is interspersed with many materials such as the characters' appearance, clothing, props, and environment to highlight the plot. Many ancient paintings, stone carvings, sculptures, utensils, and relics discovered by archaeologists reliably form a comprehensive system of time and space, which is a microcosm of ancient society. By reorganizing the scattered archaeological discoveries with official historical documents and notebook novels, it may be possible to visualize the text descriptions in "The Biography of Li Wa", make the characters' behaviors three-dimensional, and make the story events spatial, construct a rich and vivid social life in the Tang Dynasty, and activate the memory of history. Professor Qi Dongfang mainly studies archeology, history, cultural relics and art history during the Han and Tang Dynasties. He is the author of "The Historical Route of the Silk Road to Central Asia", "General History of China, History of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Archeology of the Sui and Tang Dynasties", "Research on Gold and Silverware of the Tang Dynasty", "Into the Sea of ​​Death", etc., and edited the archaeological report "Flowers Dance in the Spring of the Tang Dynasty".