UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Erica Brindley, professor of Asian studies, history, and philosophy at Penn State, will present “A Creator of God? Spontaneous Arising and an Ethics of Creativity in Early Daoism” at 12:15 p.m. on Oct. 1, in Room 102 of the Kern Building.
Brindley is an intellectual and cultural historian of early China and East/Southeast Asia (500 BCE to 200 CE). Her interests include issues related to human agency and the self, music and religion, ethnic identity, cosmology, and creativity in the pre-imperial and Qin-Han periods. She is currently organizing a series of interdisciplinary conferences on the greater South China Sea interaction zone in premodern (pre-1400 CE times), which aims to bring the work of linguists, archaeologists and humanists together in fruitful collaboration. She is also writing a sourcebook on ancient eastern cosmological texts and working on the notion of disability in Daoist theory. She has authored three books (Cambridge 2015; SUNY 2012; Hawaii 2010), co-edited three volumes, and produced numerous articles in the fields of early Chinese culture, history and philosophy.
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. 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 and the Center for Global Studies.