Chinese Rare Books at the USC Libraries: A Hands-on Workshop

Please join us for a special hands-on workshop with Dr. Soren Edgren, the renowned Chinese rare book specialist from Princeton University, to explore the Chinese rare book collection at USC libraries. After reviewing the collection, Dr. Edgren will select and showcase notable examples from the USC collection and compare them with other copies from collections in U.S. and around the world. Participants of the workshop will have the opportunity to gain first-hand experience with editions of Chinese rare books from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) periods.

James Sören Edgren received his Ph.D. in Sinology from the University of Stockholm. He has worked in the Swedish Royal Library (National Library of Sweden) and has been employed in the antiquarian book trade. Dr. Edgren was Editorial Director of the Chinese Rare Books Project at Princeton University from 1991 to 2011. His publications include Catalogue of the Nordenskiöld Collection of Japanese Books in the Royal Library (1980), Chinese Rare Books in American Collections (1984), and numerous articles. He delivered the inaugural Delisle lectures on the history of the book at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1997 and recently served as Associate Editor for The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010). He regularly teaches the History of the Book in China at Rare Book School (RBS) at the University of Virginia, and he teaches the same subject as a graduate seminar at Princeton University.

This workshop is co-sponsored by the USC Libraries Dean’s Challenge Grant, East Asian Studies Center, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and East Asian Library.

All are welcome. Please RSVP at https://bit.ly/rarebook_workshop