Speaker: Nicolas Standaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) The Chinese gazette as a publicly available government publication was distributed in a variety of formats since the twelfth century. Little is known, however, about its form and content before 1800. By looking at European sources, this presentation shows how they offer a unique way of expanding the

Speaker: Meimei Zhang, Occidental College This paper examines the Song dynasty literati’s ming 銘 inscriptions on the qin 琴, a seven-string plucked instrument that is also known as zither or guqin. The tradition of inscribing musical instruments can be traced back to bronze bells and chime stones in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which bore pithy messages primarily functioning as historiographical and musicological records. From