The City in Ancient East Asia

New graduate seminar, Art History 60, winter 2009

The seminar will be co-taught by Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen with Visiting Professor Yangjin Pak from Chungnam University in Korea.

The seminar will cover the archaeology of cities from  the genesis of urban settlements in continental East Asia all the way to the great capitals of the Tang/Silla/Nara periods. A diverse plethora of disciplinary and methodological approaches will be considered. It is the aim of this seminar to discuss the East Asian data in light of cross-cultural generalizations concerning the role of urbanism in premodern civilizations, and to see in what respects they can modify current perceptions and theories.
 
The seminar will be held on Friday mornings, 9 am - 12 noon (ignore earlier different postings).  This class will be conducted as a seminar, not--as may be stated in official postings--as a lecture class.

This class is open to graduate students only. Condition for admission is a reading knowledge of at least one East Asian language (Chinese, Japanese, Korean). Participants will be requested to give presentations in class and to produce a major research paper.

Some books are being placed on reserve at the  Art Library for the seminar.

Topics for student research projects are being assigned ahead of time.  All those interested are requested to contact Professor von Falkenhausen (310-825-6046; lothar@humnet.ucla.edu).
 

Published: Wednesday, November 26, 2008