Chris Elford

@siegeweather.bsky.social

2422 Followers 1383 Following

I work on medieval Chinese literature, calligraphy, book history, and material culture. PhD in Chinese, UC Berkeley. Professor. Translator. Teacher of Mandarin and Classical Chinese. Go/围棋/바둑 try-hard.

Entrance of Shanghai Antique Books Bookstore with grand opening decorations
Frame from the horror manga “The Enigma of Amigara Fault” featuring a man in his underwear pointing to a human shaped hole in a cliff face and shouting “This is my hole! It was made for me!”
Picture of the World Literature in Translation section at Book People in Austin, TX.
Cover of 朝圣：重走杜甫之路
A spring couplet by Pan Zhulan 潘主兰(1909--2001) written in oracle bone script calligraphy and the character for silkworm 蚕 is a cute little silkworm.
An image of Jonathan Culler’s Structuralist Poetics with the most beautiful 1970s looking cover design you’ve ever seen. Concentric circles of brown and orange radiating out from the title in a simple elegant font.
Frame one: Happy guy labeled “professor who wants dusty old canonical works removed from humanities syllabi” reaching up towards a balloon Frame Two: Happy guy no longer happy but anxiously looking back as he realizes he is being held up by an excited looking giant labeled “tech billionaire who wants to see everything removed from humanities syllabi”
A work of calligraphy in the hybrid clerical-seal style of Deng Shiru entitled《大舜舞干戚赞》