Immigration by Translation: the Journey of a Pork-Wrapped Saint
Letha Chien
Everson 157, 4:10-5 pm
Never has saint, state, and local identity been so thoroughly elided as St. Mark was with Venice in the Early Modern period. Venice’s patron saint, however, arrived in the lagoon nine centuries after his death as a posthumous immigrant. The foreign origins of St. Mark and his relics required continuous negotiation lest local identity in the fusion of state and saint either subsume or be subsumed.
Letha Ch’ien received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley after several very damp years in the Venetian archives. Having returned to her native state, she now enjoys teaching students in a drier manner. She is continuing work on a book project on the paintings of the Scuola Grande di San Marco and their participation in a proto-Society of the Spectacle.