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

[rhysiana]

That degree sounds super interesting! I often wish I had done my MA in something history-related rather than linguistics-related. So glad we can read things like this now without being graded!

I love the history of Things, and how objects of usefulness can also be objects of great beauty, but they can also just be plain and simple workhorse objects.

Yes! This connects with that point in the other book forestofglory has been posting about on Twitter, Technology and Gender, where the author talked about how museum exhibits of everyday objects turn out to be some of the most popular. (I had to go re-skim the introduction to remember which book I saw that bit in. Clearly I need a copy of this other book too!)

[forestofglory]

Technology and Gender is an older book, so there should be a bunch of used copies floating around. (Or I could ask around and see if anyone with academic access can help me get a PDF)

[rhysiana]

I have found a used copy! I haven't ordered it, but I did find it. ;-)

[forestofglory]

That's a good start! I got hit by a lot of stress and brain fog and have not made much progress with the book in the last couple of weeks.