The Penn Humanities Forum continues its association with the Chicago Humanities Festival this year, whose theme for 2013 is Animal: What Makes Us Human.

It's London, circa 1750, and every fashionable upper-class woman's indispensable accessory is an exotic Asian animal. Nothing went better with a nice piece of porcelain than a monkey, dog, or bird. University of Pennsylvania professor Chi-ming Yang, an expert on the history of Europe's fascination with Asia, discusses the meanings and representations of Chinese animals and goods in 18th-century Great Britain and uncovers the true history of an enduring modern favorite, the pug.