Dr. Soren Edgren

February 23 and 24, 2017
Lincoln and Slocum Rooms, Lilly Library

Dr. Soren Edren was Editorial Director of the Chinese Rare Books Project, an online international union catalogue of Chinese rare books based at Princeton University from 1991 to 2011. The project currently is being transferred to the National Library of China in Beijing, where the new International Union Catalogue of Chinese Rare Books database has been established. Edgren received his Ph.D. in Sinology from the University of Stockholm and has worked as East Asian cataloguer and bibliographer in the Royal Library (National Library of Sweden) in Stockholm, as well as having been active in the antiquarian book trade. In addition to dozens of scholarly articles, he has written the Catalogue of the Nordenskiöld Collection of Japanese Books in the Royal Library (Stockholm, 1980) and Chinese Rare Books in American Collections (New York, 1984). Recently Dr. Edgren served as Associate Editor for The Oxford Companion to the Book (Oxford, 2010).

On Friday morning, 10.30 a.m. to noon, Professor Edgren will lead a seminar / workshop for faculty and graduate students, on "The Material Chinese Book in the Global Middle Ages." Abstract:"The early invention of true paper in China profoundly influenced the evolution of bookbinding forms there. The workshop will demonstrate the independent development in China and East Asia of books as text-bearing objects for manuscripts, ink-squeeze rubbings, and xylographic imprints throughout the long Middle Ages, and culminating in the familiar thread-bound volume of later imperial reigns."