UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Curie Virag, senior research fellow and co-project director in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, will present “The Garden as a Site of Pleasure in China and Byzantium: What We Can Learn from Comparing Medieval Traditions," at 12:30 p.m. on April 22, in Room 102 of the Kern Building.
Virág works at the intersection of philosophy and intellectual history, and focuses on emotions, cognition, self cultivatio, and aesthetics in premodern China. She codirects (with Professor Niels Gaul) the research project “Classicising Learning in Medieval Imperial Systems: Cross-cultural Approaches to Byzantine 'Paideia' and Tang/Song 'Xue,'” funded by the European Research Council (ERC). She is also visiting faculty in the Departments of Philosophy and Medieval Studies at Central European University (Budapest). In addition to her Sino-Byzantine research, she is also at work on a sequel to her book, "The Emotions in Early Chinese Philosophy" (Oxford, 2017), which continues her investigation of emotions into the early imperial and medieval periods.
This event is a part of the Comparative Literature Luncheon lecture series, a weekly, informal lunchtime gathering of students, faculty and other members of the University community. Each week the event begins at 12:15 p.m. – lunch is provided. At 12:30 p.m. there will be a presentation, by a visitor or a local speaker, on a topic related to any humanities discipline. All students, faculty, colleagues and friends are welcome. For a full list of Comparative Literature lunches, visit http://complit.la.psu.edu/news-events/comp-lit-luncheon-series. This event is sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature, the Center for Global Studies, and the Department of Asian Studies.