The Body in Asian Art

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

It has often been assumed that representation of the human form did not play as significant a role in the development of East Asian art as it did in the Western tradition. In this seminar, we will address this issue by exploring various approaches to the issue of corporeality in the art of China and Japan that not only focus upon representation of the human body, but that also question the ways in which discourses about the body were related to larger questions about death and the afterlife, the sacred and the profane, the human and the artificial, and the articulation of national identity. Selected case studies for weekly topics may range from the famed terracotta warriors to Buddhist relics, along with an exploration of calligraphy, cyborgs, and dress. No prior knowledge of Asian art is required or assumed.