Chinese Gardens in 18th-Century Europe talk (Dr Chunjie Zhang, 5 July)

The Reception of Chinese Gardens in 18th Century England and Germany 
 
July 5th, 5.30 pm, The University of Tokyo,
​Hongo Campus, Sanjo Conference Hall

"My talk argues that Chinese structures in German and English gardens, including the prominent Chinese pagoda in Munich’s English Garden or the one in the Royal Gardens at Kew near London, are symbols of European monarchism in the Age of Enlightenment. Drawing the visual materials the Jesuits brought back from the Qing court in Beijing to Europe, William Chambers, the royal architect to George III, integrates the Chinese and the Gothic styles of architecture to evoke a sense of awe and sublimity. The German garden theorist Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld and the writer and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, however, are highly critical of this “Chinese" style and its rising popularity in German princes’ gardens. I interpret their critique as their disdain for monarchism and their support for political liberalism."

Speaker: Dr Chunjie Zhang (Assistant Professor, UC Davis)

Dr Zhang's research focuses on representations of non-European cultures in German discourse, representations of China in the European Enlightenment, and Chinese-German comparative cultural relationships in the nineteenth and the twentieth century.

She is the author of Transculturality and German Discourse in the Age of European Colonialism (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, May 2017).

​Event organized by Professor Stefan Keppler-Tasaki (Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo). Contact: [email protected]