Tutorials Plus: Chinese Studies Visit to the Ashmolean

Pembroke tutors and students in Chinese Studies recently spent an afternoon at the Ashmolean Museum with Professor Anne Gerritsen, Professor of History at the University of Warwick and Chair of Asian Art at the University of Leiden.

Professor Gerritsen was invited to give a talk on ‘Pots and Things: Approaches to the Study of Chinese Porcelain’. The session explored how twenty-first-century students and scholars deal with the large quantities of often unknown pieces of Chinese porcelain found today in shops, restaurants, houses, galleries and elsewhere. Professor Gerritsen framed the discussion of Chinese porcelain from the perspectives of interactions between different kilns, the transmission of technology and consumer desires across the Chinese empire.

Attendees, made up of undergraduate and postgraduate students reading Chinese at Pembroke, along with Stanley Ho Fellow and Tutor in Chinese Professor Henrietta Harrison, were also invited to study and engage with a small set of objects, considering their similarities and differences.

Organised by Dr Xiaojing Miao, Stanley Ho Junior Research Fellow in Chinese Studies at Pembroke, the event was funded by the College’s Tutorials Plus fund, which enriches students’ learning with activities such as subject talks and visits.