Fall 2009 Seminar Announcement: Art History 260B - Cosmology and Material Culture in Early Imperial China
Fall 2009 Seminar in Art History
Published: Monday, September 14, 2009
Art History 260B
Fall 2009
COSMOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN EARLY IMPERIAL CHINA
Graduate Seminar
Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen
Linked to a symposium on Chinese mirrors to be held at UCLA in late November, this seminar explores the reflections of cosmology in the visual arts of China between, roughly, 400 BC and AD 900. The focus will be on how then-current ideas about the universe were transformed into visual formulae, which in turn became the dominant artistic motifs throughout the material culture of early imperial China; and on the intellectual implications of this development.
The seminar sessions and conference will be augmented by field visits to museums and private collections in the Los Angeles area.
This seminar is restricted to graduate students. Specially qualified undergraduates may be admitted upon consent of instructor. Reading knowledge of at least one East Asian language is desirable but not required.
Participants will write substantial research papers and give oral presentations over the course of the quarter.
For further information, please contact the instructor (lothar@humnet.ucla.edu).
