The Social Life of Inkstones Read Along: Introduction

[forestofglory]

Welcome to the first post of our read a long of The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China by Dorothy Ko! For this post we are reading the introduction.

Since this the introduction to the book, I thought it might be nice for us to introduce ourselves, so here are some optional discussion questions:

1. What do you hope to get out of reading this book? What do you hope to get out of the read a long format?

2. What is your experience reading academic history books? (No experience necessary of course, but it's helpful for me to know for planning purposes)

3. What is your experience using an inkstone or writing languages that historically where written with inkstones?

4. In the introduction what did you find interesting and/or exciting?

Comments

[cortue]

Oo, those both sound like very cool classes, or a series of classes in the Latin History minor case. I wish my university would've had classes on such topics. And I appreciate your professor's focus on analyzing the author's intent and effectiveness.

What an interesting idea about the intellectual freedom of courtesans!

[rhysiana]

They were very good classes (if depressing, in the case of modern LatAm history)!

There's a new book in the Lotus Palace series coming out soon, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I pick up on different things in it after reading this book.