Topophilia and the Twenty Poems about Dunhuang: locus et amor loci

The anonymous poetic sequence Twenty Poems about Dunhuang (Dunhuang ershi yong) describes the history, geography, and lore of the Dunhuang region. Known from manuscript sources, the poems record 9th-century perceptions of the area, its past and its present. Ruins, landscapes, strange trees, and memories populate the lyrics. In this presentation, Charles Sanft will introduce the Twenty Poems and their manuscript witnesses, examine examples from the sequence, and consider them in terms of what W.H. Auden called topophilia, the love of place.

Please RSVP here. This event will be held fully in-person. We encourage non-Stanford affiliates to join in-person; please review the library visitor access page.

About the speaker:

Charles Sanft studies the history and culture of premodern China. He has published two monographs and dozens of articles, chapters, and reviews. His second book, Literate Community in Early Imperial China, received the James Henry Breasted Prize for the best book in English on history prior to 1000 CE from the American Historical Association, and an Honorable Mention for the pre-1900 Joseph Levenson Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.