Dr. Theodore Foss describes The Field Museum’s vast collection of Chinese ink rubbings, the contribution of early twentieth-century Field Museum curator Berthold Laufer, the archival importance of the art form of ink rubbings in Chinese history and the particular significance of the Field Museum’s having several rubbings of China Jesuit tombstones.

Theodore Foss is the Associate Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at The University of Chicago. Prior to taking this position in 1998, Dr. Foss was Assistant Director of the Center for East Asian Studies and Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Before that he was Co-founder and Associate Director of the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at University of San Francisco; and Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in the Committee on the History of Culture from the University of Chicago in 1979.

Recorded Saturday, February 13, 2010 at The Field Museum.