Cao Xueqin’s Story of the Stone / Dream of the Red Chamber

The Fifth Annual WLL Big Fat Books Symposium

Conference Program – Friday-Saturday, April 28-29, 2023 Barrister’s Hall, BU School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Avenue

The eighteenth-century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng 紅樓夢), also known as The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin, is one of the great works of world literature. With its great length and its numerous characters and subplots, the book offers a complex picture of love, desire, ambition and loss. It is about a family; it is about a group of teenagers growing up within a family compound in the Grand Prospect Park garden; and it is also about the dual aspect of all things, including truth and falsehood, illusion and reality, heaven and earth. The novel has spoken to generations of readers in the Chinas and internationally, and it continues to do so today.

Please join us for a day and a half of cross-disciplinary conversation as we celebrate this novel in the fifth iteration of our Big Fat Books conference series.

Location: Barrister’s Hall, on Boston University’s Charles River Campus

Barrister’s Hall is located on the first floor of the School of Law building (765 Commonwealth Avenue), toward the rear of the building (see red marker on map below). Please note that although the Law School building has a Commonwealth Avenue address, it is actually set back from Commonwealth Avenue, behind and to the left of Marsh Plaza.

Sponsored by:

Boston University Center for the Humanities

Boston University Center for the Study of Asia

Boston University College of Fine Arts

Boston University Arts Initiative

Han Suyin Foundation

NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor

CAS Associate Dean of Humanities

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Department of English