William Fleming, author of “Strange Tales from Edo: Rewriting Chinese Fiction in Early Modern Japan,” will be the next guest speaker for CSUSB’s Modern China Lecture Series, which will take place at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 6.

The presentation, free and open to the public, will take place in person at the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, room SB-210, and on Zoom at https://csusb.zoom.us/j/388207496. Two copies of Fleming's book, signed by the author, will be given away to attendees at the lecture.

Fleming is an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he specializes in Japanese literature, comparative literature and theater studies.

His latest book, “Strange Tales from Edo,” “paints a sweeping picture of Japan’s engagement with Chinese fiction in the early modern period (1600–1868),” according to the book publisher’s website. “Large-scale analyses of the full historical and bibliographical record – the first of their kind – document in detail the wholesale importation of Chinese fiction, the market for imported books and domestic reprint editions, and the critical role of manuscript practices – the ascendance of print culture notwithstanding – in the circulation of Chinese texts among Japanese readers and writers.”

The Modern China Lecture Series was initiated to promote awareness of important issues related to China for those on the CSUSB campus and in the community.

In the series of more than 100 lectures, workshops, film screenings and roundtable forums since January 2014, China scholars from UC San Diego, UC Riverside, the Claremont Colleges, UCLA, USC, UC Irvine, Columbia, Oxford and other institutions have visited the CSUSB campus to share their expertise and opinions.

Speakers in the series have included specialists in history, economics, political science, philosophy, finance, security studies, literature, anthropology and other fields. Recordings of past talks can be found at the CSUSB Modern China Lecture Series channel on YouTube.

Upcoming speakers in the series include:

The series co-sponsors this year are the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Intellectual Life Fund. Series organizers are Jeremy Murray, professor of history, and Alexander Serrano, a UC Santa Barbara doctoral candidate.

For more information on the Modern China Lecture Series, contact Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu.