PCPL Passport Travel Series to feature Chandler on China

Sunday, May 11, 2014

The Putnam County Public Library will host a Passport Travel Series program with Marthe Chandler on Wednesday, May 14.

The free public program is scheduled from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

Chandler will discuss her trips to China and the influence of Chinese gardens in America. It is a library is a brown bag event with drinks and snacks provided.

Chandler has been to China four times and has noticed numerous examples of "glocalization," ways in which global culture localizes itself within the United States.

On one of her trips to China, Chandler visited the Chinese gardens at Suzhou and was curious about the Chinese gardens that have sprouted across the U.S., such as the gardens in St. Louis, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., and on Staten Island.

"Each of these gardens boasts of being an authentic replica of a Suzhou garden and each them has been glocalized in its own way, ways that can teach us much not only about Chinese gardens, but about our own culture and Chinese responses to it," Chandler said.

Chandler taught in the Philosophy Department and Asian Studies program at DePauw University from 1981 to her retirement in 2010.

She has published several articles, including "Meno and Mencius: Two Philosophical Dramas" (Philosophy East and West 2003) and co-edited "Polishing the Chinese Mirror: Essays in Honor of Henry Rosemont Jr." (2008).

Chandler, who has visited East Asia a half-dozen times, is currently writing a book on Chinese aesthetics -- when she is not working in her beloved garden on Bloomington Street.

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