Detail, Arhat (Hatsunabashi Sonja - Vanavasi) seated; a disciple is kneeling behind him, attributed to Ryozen.

Symposia and Conferences

Upcoming Events

symposium

Yoga and Visual Culture: An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Explore yoga’s histories, meanings, transformations, and practices through the lens of visual culture at this public symposium. Twenty years ago, yoga was largely understood as a monolithic and unchanging tradition. Today we have a far richer understanding of yoga’s historical transformations and trans-sectarian manifestations. Its visual culture—ranging from sectarian, court, and popular imagery to architecture and photography—remains its least-explored archival resource.

Over a three-day period, seventeen scholars from a range of disciplines present new research on diverse aspects of yoga’s visual culture. Six symposium sessions are organized around topics such as "Yoga and Place" and "Yoga and Print Culture." Individual paper presentations alternate with discussions and time to explore Yoga: The Art of Transformation. Free and open to the public; preregistration required.

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Symposium

Chinese Object Study Workshops

2013–2014

Sophisticated visual analysis is a hallmark of art history and depends on skills acquired through the direct study of objects. These skills must be taught and practiced. Yet as graduate art history curricula have expanded to include training in methodology, historiography, and theory, training in object study has all but disappeared. The problem is exacerbated for students of Chinese art history, whose graduate curricula must also include language courses and related subjects such as religion, literature, and history.

Chinese Object Study Workshops is a pilot program that will provide graduate students in Chinese art history an immersive experience in the study of objects—in particular, those belonging to the great collections of Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Freer|Sackler). The workshops will help students develop the skills necessary for working with objects, introduce them to conservation issues not readily encountered in typical graduate art history curricula, and familiarize them with important American museum collections.

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Past Events

The Legacy of Cyrus the Great: Iran and Beyond
Saturday, April 27, 2012

Crossroads of Culture: The Archaeology of Saudi Arabia
Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Art of Itō Jakuchū
Friday, March 30, 2012

Imperial Exposure: Early Photography and Royal Portraits across Asia
December 5–6, 2011

Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism
October 27–28, 2011

Art and Material Culture of the Northern Qi Period
June 3–5, 2011

Piety, Poetry, and Politics: Sufi Muslims in South Asia
April 28–30, 2011

Historians Of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) Second Biennial Symposium: "Objects, Collections, And Cultures"
Thursday, October 21–Saturday, October 23, 2010

Forbes Symposium
October 28–29, 2010