About Us

School of Chinese Scholar Seminar

Minor Character in The Story of the Stone

《紅樓夢》中的次要人物

Speaker: Prof. Sophie VOLPP

(Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley)

Date & Time: June 16, 2026 (Next Tuesday) 10:30am-12:30nn (HKT)

Language: English

Venue: CRT-4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Delivery Mode:

Face-to-face & Online (via Zoom)

Registration:

https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6FLUMSd3kJ4BGJw

Abstract:

Cao Xueqin’s eighteenth-century novel The Story of the Stone, or Dream of the Red Chamber, portrays character with a much vaunted and persuasive verisimilitude. This talk will explore how its portrayal of minor characters, both individually and in the aggregate, speaks to the novel’s stated concern with the teaching of the Heart Sutra (心經) that form is emptiness and emptiness, form.

How does Stone use its minor characters to illuminate the paradox that form has no referents? This talk will focus on the servants Crimson (紅玉) and Skybright (晴雯), examining in particular the episode in Chapter 31 in which Skybright tears fans for pleasure with her master Baoyu.

About the Speaker:

Sophie VOLPP's research concerns Chinese literature of the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries; she also has an interest in the libraries of the Republican period. She has published on fiction and material culture, performance practice and stage architecture, the history of sexuality, and the epistemology of reference. Her books Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China (Harvard East Asia Center, 2011), and The Substance of Fiction: Literary Objects in China, 1550-1775 (Columbia, 2022) examine the relation of literary words to the world beyond. Essays regarding pre-modern Chinese fiction and drama have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Journal of Theater Studies, positions: east asia cultures critique and Papers on Chinese Literature. She has also translated the writing of poets and playwrights of the 12th through 19th centuries. She has two books in progress, The World in the Stone and Rare Books in Exile: the 102 Crates of the National Peiping Library.

Notice:
1) The seminar will be conducted primarily in a face-to-face mode; Those who cannot attend the seminar in-person could apply for online participation (via Zoom);
2) All those who would like to attend the seminar are required to register online (Click HERE) on a first-come, first-served basis;
3) Email of confirmation will be sent to the registered email addresses and participants have to show the screenshot or print-out version of the email for entry of the seminar venue;
4) Walk-in or late-comers will not be allowed for entry of the seminar venue unless situation allows.

 
ALL are welcome*
*Pre-registration (Click HERE) is required.