Courtesans Qing Dynasty China Judith Zeitlin
Professor Margaret Francesca Rosenthal, USC, Prof of Italian, Comp Lit and English, and Judith Zeitlin, Prof of Ch Lit at the University of Chicago, gave presentations about courtesan culture in Renaissance, Italy, and Qing Dynasty China, respectively. Judith Zeitlin took the approach of Music being visible in the paintings, literally and figuratively, and started her preamble as she termed it, with the panels representing the musicians She called her presentation, "Flesh , Silk, Bamboo: Picturing Song and Beautiful women in Late Imperial Visual Culture ." She cites Rose Tremain's "Music and Silence", in which a king houses an orchestra in his wine cellar, so the concerts can filter up to his dining room, and entertain his guests. She notes that "this disembodied music" was an anomoly then but we take it for granted today, when it is the opposite -- the presence of musicians is an exception. She sets up the theme of "listening to music wi...