Vera Schwarcz

Vera Schwarcz (born 1947^[1]) is Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. Her BA was from Vassar College, with a MA from Yale, a MAA from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.^[2]

Born in Romania, Schwarcz has taught Chinese history at Stanford University, Wesleyan University, as well as at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Beijing University and Centre Chine in Paris. She is serving currently as Director of the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies and Chair of the East Asian Studies Program at Wesleyan. She is the author of eight books, including the prize-winning Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory (Yale University Press, 1999) as well as Time for Telling Truth Is Running Out: Conversations with Zhang Shenfu (Yale, 1986); The Chinese Enlightenment (Berkeley, 1984) and most recently—Place and Memory in Singing Crane Garden (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). She is also the author of three books of poetry including A Scoop of Light and In The Garden of Memory—a collaboration with the Prague-born Israeli artist Chava Pressburger.^[3]

Her most recent book (Schwarcz, Vera (2008). Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812241006. ) centers on the problem of truth in comparative history:

The Singing Crane Garden in northwest Beijing has a history dense with classical artistic vision, educational experimentation, political struggle, and tragic suffering. Built by the Manchu prince Mianyu in the mid-nineteenth century, the garden was intended to serve as a refuge from the clutter of daily life near the Forbidden City. In 1860, during the Anglo-French war in China, the garden was destroyed. One hundred years later, in the 1960s, the garden served as the "oxpens," where dissident university professors were imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. Peaceful Western involvement began in 1986, when ground was broken for the Arthur Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. Completed in 1993, the Museum and the Jillian Sackler Sculpture Garden stand on the same grounds today. ^[4]

Bibliography

Her books include:

• Schwarcz, Vera (2009). Bring Rest in the Garden of Flourishing Grace. CT: Red Heffin Press. 
• Schwarcz, Vera (2009). Chisel of Remembrance. Antrim House. ISBN 9780981788326. 
• Schwarcz, Vera (2008). Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812241006. 
• Truth is Woven (Premier Poets Chapbook Series, 2005)
• Schwarcz, Vera (2004). In the Garden of Memory. City: March Street Pr. ISBN 9780974590936. 
• Schwarcz, Vera (2000). Scoop of Light. City: March Street Pr. ISBN 9781882983513. 
• Fresh Words for a Jaded World - and selected poems (Blue Feather Press, Co., 2000)
• Schwarcz, Vera (1998). Bridge across Broken Time. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300066142. 
• Schwarcz, Vera (1992). Time for Telling Truth Is Running out. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300050097. 
• Schwarcz, Vera (1986). The Chinese Enlightenment. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520050273. 
• Schwarcz, Vera (1984). Long Road Home. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300030099. 

Her poetry includes:

• “Hinges” Binah 1:6 (November 6, 2006) p. 79
• “In Answer” and “Rose of Sharon,” in Common ground Review (Fall, 2006) pp. 30-31 and 38-39
• “Rain and Scallops,” Binah 4:4 (October 23, 2006) p. 87
• “Before I know Shabbat,” The Newport Review No. 27 (July/August 2006) p. 3
• “Dark Words,” The Alembic (2006) p. 99
• “With Yehuda in the Jerusalem Forest,” Jewish Tribune , London (December 15, 2005) p. 15
• “How do you know a place,” Ilya’s Honey (Winter 2006) pp. 5-6
• “Marble Poet,” and “Thirty Six Years Later,” in Taproot Review Vol. 8 (2004/pp. 25, 26, 37-8)
• “Where Azure Reigned” in B’or Ha'orah No. 15 (2005) p. 61
• “Nocturnal Neighbors,” “There are good reasons to hide the eight” and “The Soul is No Flat Terrain” in Poetry Sky (May, 2005)
• “Carved on a Garden Gate,” Pegasus (Spring 2005) p. 9
• “Out of the Palace with my 9th Sister,” The Newport Review No. 17 (January/February 2005) p. 3
• “Hungry Still” Tap Root Review No. 7 (August 2004) p. 42
• “Old Fool,” Pegasus (Fall 2004) p. 27
• “Seventy Years Already” and “Dreams Follow No Party Line,” in China Rights Forum No. 20 (June 2004) p. 69
• “Common Mullein,” Clark Street Review (July 2004) p. 25
• “A Bellyful of Godliness,: Poetica (July, 2004) p. 35
• "Suspensor," and "Fish From Rocks," Illya's Honey 9:4 (Winter 2004) pp. 31-34
• “Where Cranes used to Dance,” Asphodel II No. 1 (Fall 2003)
• "Apprentice" and "Not Even Wounded Mountains" in Voices Israel (2003) pp. 20 and 100
• "La Dame a Licorne: Meditation on Buttressed Vision," Ekphrasis Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2003) pp. 15-17
• "Tools," and "Leavening Toward Truth," Tap Root Review 2003
• "Where is the Icy Jade Cup Now? Rockhurst Review vol. 16 (Spring 2003) pp. 101-102
• "Kozo and Cabbage," "To Taste Time," "Weeds," "Apprentice," "Threads of Ochre," "Eyes" "Detectives of the Real," in Newsletter Inago 23:5 (May 2003) special issue
• "Wounded Mountains," Willow Review (2003) pp. 38-39
• "Instead of Sleep," Sho (Spring 2003) p. 71
• "Windy Lips Upon the Shoulders of the Garden," Notre Dame Review #15 (Winter 2003) p. 152
• “Motionless,” and “A Patch of Pure Breath,” Into the Teeth of the Wind vol. III No. 2 (2002)
• “Let Brittle Branches of Anxiety,” Clark Street Review, No. 25 (November 2002)
• “One Foot on the Isle of Immortals,” Night Thoughts in the Flowing Wind,” “No Rest in Supple Verse” – Renditions of the Chinese in Parting Gifts 15.2 (December 2002) pp. 1, 2, 38
• “Landscape of Darkness,” Curbside Review (November 2002)
• “Tools,” in Common Ground Review 4:2 (Fall 2002)
• “Conversations with the Paper Art of Chara Pressburger,” Red Rock Review No. 12 (Summer 2002) pp. 57-61
• “Between Cedar and Acacia,” and “Desire for Worlds,” Illya’s Honey 8:2 (Summer 2002) pp. 25-27
• “Not Only the Rooster, “and “Clueless in the Wireless World,” Shades of December issue 10 (Summer 2002)
• "Weila Shiwasu - shixuan" (selections from the poetry of Vera Schwarcz) translated into Chinese by Wang Meng, Shikan (Poetry Monthly) No. 6 (June 2000)
• "Bishop Tutu Kippa" Jewish Currents (September, 2000) p. 5
• "Returning," "Mother Tongues," and "As Above So Below," Illya's Honey (April, 2000)
• "Fresh Words, for a Jaded World," Common Ground Review (Spring, 2000)
• "Singing Crane Garden," The Comstock Review 14; 1 (May, 2000)
• "Nocturnal Neighbors," Paris/Atlantic Journal, No. 2, (Winter 1999) p. 134.
• "Un bain des mots," Parnassus 23:3 (Fall/Winter 1999) p. 79.
• "Jerusalem is a golden bowl..." Voices Israel, Vol. 25 (1997-1998) p. 68.
• "Cycle of Poems: Our Child Comes to Us," Writing For Our Lives, 7:1 (Summer, 1998) pp. 24-25.
• "A Wall of Silence", Jewish Currents (March 1997)
• "To Use Refuse" and " On Mount Gilboa," Ibis Review, No. 1 (spring, 1995) pp. 70-7 1.
• "Scorpions For Lunch," Hudson Valley Echoes, No. 29 (Summer 1993) p. 11.
• "My Tongue is Like the Pen of a Skillful Scribe," Wellsprings, No. 3 9 (Winter 1992/1993) p. 8.
• "Wiedergutmachung," in Hobo Jungle No. 7, Spring 1990, pp. 15, 7 1.
• "You Mean There Was No Sex in Auschwitz?" Jewish Currents, November 1989, pp. 11 - 15, 4 1.

Her articles includes:

• “The Art of Poetry, Part II, poetrysky.com (July 2007)
• “Truth and History: The Chinese Mirror,” History and Theory, Volume 46; Number 2 (2007) pp. 281-291
• “Travels in China,” Binah (March 19, 2007) pp. 18-25
• “The Art of Poetry Part I, A Conversation with Yidan Han,” poetrysky.com (January 2007)
• “Jiu ji mang mang” (Blurred and boundless traces from the past – historical trauma in the work of the Manchu Prince Yihuan) in Bijiao wenxhe yu shijie wenxhe (Comparative Literature and World Literature) Beijing University Press, (2005) pp. 154-167
• "Wu si liang dai zhi shi Jen zi" (Two generations of May Fourth intellectuals) in Xi Jilin, editor 20 Shi Dai Zhong quo zhi shi Jen zi liang (Essays on 20th Century Intellectual History) (Shang hai, 2005)
• "Zamen you zhiyin" (A Wordless Connection) in Chen Lai, ed. Bu Xi Ji: Huiyi Zhang Dainian Xiansheng (Unbroken Threads: Essays in Memory of Professor Zhang Dainian). Beijing, 2005. pp. 340 - 346.
• "Historical Memory and Personal Identity," B'or Ha'Torah No 15. (2005) pp. 56 - 60
• “Through and Against the Tide of History: Zhu Guanqian and the Legacy of May Fourth," China Studies, No. 5 (1999)
• "Garden and Museum: Shadows of Memory at Peking University," East Asian History 17/18 (1999)
• “The Burden of Memory: The Cultural Revolution and the Holocaust,” China Information (Summer 1996)
• “The Pane of Sorrow: Public Uses of Personal Grief in Modem China," Daedalus (Winter, 1996)
• “Di er ci shi Jie da zhan: zai bo wu guan de guang zhao zhi wai (World War II: Beyond the Museum Lights) in Dong Fang (The Orient)” Vol. 5 (1995)
• “Chinese History, Jewish Memory": Shapes of Memory, ed. Geoffrey Hartman (London: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1994)
• "No Solace from Lethe," in The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, edited by Tu Weiming (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994)
• “Amnesie historique dans la Chine du XX e siecle,” Genre Humain, special issue, “Politiques de L'Oubli," No. 18 (Paris, 1988)

References