Lihong Liu

This book project provides a study of clear glass as a material medium and its environmental and epistemological implications in China from about the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century. It examines how clear glass was circulated globally and used in various forms including windows, mirrors, lanterns, coverings, paintings, apparatuses, and automata. By considering artistic expressions, cultural receptions, phenomenological and psychosomatic responses, and ecological appropriations, it discusses how clear glass instigated a new kind of human-environment relationship that reflected the agency of matter.