In conjunction with Repentant Monk: Illusion and Disillusion in the Art of Chen Hongshou, two scholars present lectures that expand our understanding of the painter's work, life, and times.

In his lecture Chen Hongshou: Elusive Identities: Artists and Subjects, Richard Vinograd explores attribution problems involving Chen, his collaborators, and his followers—as well as intriguing questions of identity surrounding his subjects—in the context of late Ming dynasty culture. Vinograd is professor of Asian art in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University and author of an essay for the exhibition catalog.

Philip Kafalas presents Zhang Dai and Chen Hongshou: Two Friends and the Past, in which he discuses Zhang Dai in relation to Chen Hongshou and the late Ming world they shared. A writer and an artist who each wrote briefly about the other, they were both concerned with the relationship between personal and vast cultural past. Kafalas is associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Georgetown University. His book In Limpid Dream Nostalgia and Zhang Dai's Reminiscences of the Ming is part of his ongoing work on late-imperial Chinese personal prose, memoirs, and the intersection of personal and cultural memory.