ASIA 358 - Seminar in Asian Art

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as ART 358) Topic for 2024/25b: Art of the Silk Roads: Making, Meaning, and Mobility from China to Europe. Focusing on intercultural exchange, this seminar explores the movements of artworks and artisans across premodern Afro-Eurasian trade networks known collectively as the “Silk Roads.” The course embraces a wide temporal and geographical scope: from the Iron Age to the 16th century, major Silk Road settlements flourished across modern-day China, India, Afghanistan, Mongolia, the Russian Far East, Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and Northeast Africa. We trace and analyze the dissemination of objects and images, as well as the transmission of ideas, aesthetic concepts, religions, ideologies, and governance models across the land and maritime routes linking these cultural spheres. In so doing, we explore how trade, war, diplomacy, climate change, and migration were continuously shaping the artistic, sociopolitical, and economic landscapes of Silk Road empires and communities. The course material shall also lead us to critiques of colonial frameworks and Euro-centric terminologies in the historiography of the Silk Roads, largely shaped by accounts of European travelers and invaders. Throughout the course, we study the premodern patterns of globalization in Afro-Eurasia and the role of art in this growing interconnectedness.

Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS