Spring 2025 (tentative)

HART 2155W Healing and Art in China

In this course we examine the interconnection of “human” and “natural” environments in premodern China, with a focus on early healing practices and the development of the arts. Topics to be examined include the materiality and technology of individual craft traditions, especially as they relate to the human body; magical healing texts, talismans, and dharanis; the art of the Buddha of Medicine; the growing of transformative herbs and the development of the aesthetic garden; and tea consumption as medicine and art.

HART 3164W Art of the Buddhist Relic and Reliquary

What do bones, mummies, gems, and blood writing all have in common? Why craft an exquisite vessel of the most precious materials just to bury or hide it? Throughout this course, we will discover answers to these questions and other intriguing paradoxes. Revealing the subject to be trans-historical and trans-cultural, this course analyzes the veneration of Buddhist relics and the construction of reliquaries from a visual perspective by focusing on their art, ritual, and devotion as manifested in the material and visual cultures of China, Korea, Japan, and South Asia. As a seminar course, the first part of each class will be lectures where I draw out certain points from the required readings, provide visual accompaniment, and present additional information to augment the week’s theme. The second half of the class will be student-led open discussions of the readings and topic.

Fall 2024

HART 2815W Digital Humanities: The Chinese Temple

A project-based course on digital documentation and the development of computer-based research tools for the study of architecture and cultural heritage in China, in 2815W we focus on digital approaches to artwork, architecture and built assemblages (monasteries and temple complexes), and the spiritual landscapes of premodern China. Class time will be divided between substance and practice. Thus, we will study the history of the architecture, setting, and decoration of temple buildings in China; learn about the underlying theory of heritage studies and international translation practices for technical terminology; and gain practical experience in data curation for cultural heritage sites.

As a writing course (W), we learn to modify our writing for different audiences and purposes. We will write, review, and edit short descriptions of technical terms, and then use those terms to write about individual buildings and temple sites. Through methods of visual analysis, we create precise descriptions of structural and stylistic forms and learn how these forms are translated and interpreted for different cultural environments–highly desirable skills in current art and architectural history, museum work, and heritage studies. Final projects will focus on incorporating primary and secondary sources in studies of form, subject, iconography, and the cultural and religious contexts of timber frame architecture, architectural ceramics, and the materiality of temples in the Chinese context.

HART 1111-11 FYWS House, Temple City: Sacred Geographies of China

In this seminar we examine forms of traditional houses, temples and monastic complexes, and cities in pre-modern China to explore the role of the built environment in the shaping of social and spiritual lives. Beginning with the structure of the courtyard house we discuss the way in which space is manipulated as a form of encoded language, as well as a type of “agent” in regulating human and non-human relationships. We move then to explore the definitions of “sacred” and “religion” to problemitize the category of “temples” as applied to built environments used by ritual specialists for encounters with other-worldly powers. We ask if there is a difference between the house and the temple, and if so, what is it? Finally, we consider the form and symbolism of the imperial city in China to examine whether it fits into our definitions of a “sacred” or “secular” space.

Because it is a writing seminar, in this course we will spend extra time reviewing fundamental essay types and the formal structures of research documentation. There are no prerequisites, nor is there any expectation of prior knowledge of China.  Students unfamiliar with Chinese terms should expect to spend some time at the beginning of the semester familiarizing yourself with different systems of transforming Chinese language into Romanized script.