PRESENTER:
Jonathan Schlesinger (History, IU Bloomington)
TOPIC:
“Pearl Thieves and Perfect Order: A Mollusk’s Perspective on Qing Manchuria”
DATE: Friday, March 1, 2013
TIME: 12:00-1:15 p.m.
LOCATION: Seminar Room, Center for the Study of Global Change (201 N. Indiana Avenue)
DATE: Friday, March 1, 2013
TIME: 12:00-1:15 p.m.
LOCATION: Seminar Room, Center for the Study of Global Change (201 N. Indiana Avenue)
Something
strange happened in Manchuria in 1840: its precious freshwater pearls all
disappeared. Perhaps stranger still, the Qing Empire did everything in
its power to protect them: draft men; fortify passes; patrol rivers; send boats
and horses and silver and bannermen. What had happened? Historians
typically present Qing Manchuria’s environmental history with sharp, ethnic
contrasts: Manchus attempt to conserve nature; Chinese immigrants work to
develop it. Based on Manchu-language archival sources, this paper argues
for a more complex narrative, in which neither Chinese nor Manchu identities
predominate. Rather, it frames the very invention of this ethnic
dichotomy – and “Manchuria” itself – in the context of China’s early modern
resource boom, when commodities, such as fresh water pearls, were first hunted
to extinction.
Jonathan
Schlesinger is
an assistant professor in the Department of History at IU Bloomington.
His current book project, Inventing Nature in the Qing Empire, studies
the nexus of empire, environment, and market that defined Qing China in the
years 1750-1850, when unprecedented commercial expansion and a rush for natural
resources transformed the ecology of China and its borderlands.
Persons with disabilities
interested in attending our events who may require assistance, please contact
us in advance at (812)
855-3765.
East
Asian Studies Center
Indiana
University
1021
East Third Street
Memorial
Hall West 207
Bloomington,
IN 47405
Phone:
(812) 855-3765
Fax:
(812) 855-7762
E-mail:
easc@indiana.edu
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