Visual imagery (photographs, paintings, etc.) can be seen as crystallized splinters of space-time, separable from their ostensible origins and in circulation through distant lands and future eras. Our seminar will look at the status of visual imagery in relation to China, which itself has frequently been imagined to be located outside of conventional spatial and temporal continua (the "middle kingdom," with an "ancient, five thousand year culture," etc.). We are soliciting papers on "Chinese imagery" understood both in the sense of Chinese visual culture per se, but also in the sense of visual mis/perceptions of China from abroad. We are particularly interested in the circulation of actual images and of technologies of visual reproduction both within and beyond China. All historical periods are welcome.

Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:

• The relationship between technologies and practices of visual reproduction in China, and their corresponding "scopic regimes";
• The transnational market in Chinese art, cinema, memorabilia, etc.;
• The relationship between imagery and textuality in Chinese culture;
• The status of the spectacle and performativity in Chinese politics;
• The reproduction and transformation of images of "China" in American and foreign "China towns."

Please e-mail one to two page abstracts to both Eileen Cheng-yin Chow (echow@fas.harvard.edu), and Carlos Rojas (rojasc@columbia.edu).

Submission deadline: September 15.

Note: Interested parties are encouraged to contact us with potential topics at their earliest convenience.