Mitsui lecturer Linda Butler keynotes 'Celebration of Scholarship'

Mary Beadle, Dean of the Graduate School, welcomed everyone to the 'Celebration of Scholarship' before Professor Susan Long introduced the Mitsui Lecture in Donahue Auditorium

Linda Butler began her lecture with an historical view of the "Three Gorges" area she documented in Yangtze Remembered

Linda Butler delivered the Mitsui Distinguished Lecture in East Asian Studies yesterday afternoon (Mar 14) in Donahue Auditorium, the first in a week-long series of events that comprise the Graduate School's 4th annual Celebration of Scholarship.

Noting that some may not consider photography as scholarship, Butler said she takes a "scholarly approach" to her photographs and then proved the point with stunning images from her book, Yangtze Remembered, and a vivid account of her 4-year effort to follow the epochal construction of Three Gorges Dam and its effect on the millions of Chinese who live along the Yangtze River.

Having attended one of the last workshops conducted by the legendary Ansel Adams, Butler considers herself "an artist who's concerned about document" but who takes artistic license when necessary -- such as by enhancing an image in order to offset severe air pollution and enable the viewer to see the detail in the scene. The Yangtze Remembered display adjacent to the Garden Cafe, Administration lower level

The Yangtze Remembered display adjacent to the Garden Cafe, Administration lower level

Much of the detail she photographed has already disappeared beneath the massive reservoir forming behind the Three Gorges Dam, but thanks to her black-and-white images which "float in time," the history and culture she fell in love with will endure.

A number of the images from Yangtze Remembered are on display in the cases adjacent to the Garden Cafe on the lower level of the Administration Building (beneath Kulas Auditorium).

See 'Celebration of Scholarship'>>>

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