Keynote lecture ‘Song of Wind in the Pines’

Willem van Gulik is born 1944 in Chongqing (People’s Republic of China) received an international school education, graduated in Oriental Studies and Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University (the Netherlands). He was Curator of the East-Asian department at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden (1971-1982) and Director-General (1982-1991). From 1991-1994 he was a senior advisor for the project Privatization National Museums in the Netherlands, Ministry of Welfare, Public Health, and Culture. Furthermore, he was appointed as the Leiden University Foundation extraordinary professor in the Arts and Material Culture of Japan (1985-1994), followed by appointment in 1994 as professor of East Asian Arts and Cultures in the Faculty of Humanities and in the Faculty of Archaeology. In 2009, Van Gulik retired as Professor Emeritus, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS). He also has been a board member of the Vereniging Vrienden der Aziatische Kunst (Association Friends of Asian Art) from 1989-1997.