Arts of Asia Lecture Series

Fall 2008

Passport to Asia:

An Odyssey Through Asian Art and History

Instructor of Record: Mary-Ann Milford

When: Fridays, August 29 - December 12
Time:     10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Place:    Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall
Fee:      $125 members, $190 non-members (includes AAM

membership), registration required

15 per-lecture drop in fee (no registration needed)

The Arts of Asia lecture series begins Friday, August 29 in Samsung Hall. The instructor of record will be Mary-Ann Milford, provost and dean of the faculty as well as professor of art history and Carver Professor of Far Eastern Studies at Mills College.

Many of the Arts of Asia lecture series favorite speakers from the Bay Area and across the country will transport you to tombs and temples, forbidden cities and sometimes forgotten centers of power, religion and art.

Jay Xu, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco's new Director will kick off the fall series August 29 with a lecture on "China’s Lost Civilization at Sanxingdui," a Bronze Age civilization lost for more than 3,000 years that was rediscovered in China's southwestern Sichuan province in the mid-1980s.

During the fall and spring Arts of Asia lectures, we also will visit other fabled sites throughout China, Korea, Japan, the Near East and Central Asia, the Himalayas, India and Southeast Asia. We will view world wonders not simply as tourists do today but as monks and monarchs, artisans and aristocrats, traders and explorers experienced them over the centuries.

August 29

Mysterious Creatures, Towering Trees and Lofty Figures in

Sacrifice: The Lost Civilization at Sanxingdui, China

Jay Xu, Asian Art Museum

September 5

Rethinking Chinese Han Dynasty Tombs

Patricia Berger, UC Berkeley

September 12

Exemplary Lives in the Buddhist Caves of Northern China

Patricia Berger, UC Berkeley

September 19

Jingdezhen: Porcelain Capital of China and the World

Robert Mowry, Harvard University

September 26

The Forbidden City in Chinese Myth and History

Richard Vinograd, Stanford University

October 3

Persia: Isfahan nisf-I jahan (Isfahan, Half the World)

Sheila Blair, Boston College

October 10

Horyuji and Nara: Preserving China's Buddhist Past in Japan

Joan O'Mara, Washington & Lee University

October 17

Beyond Words at the Haein Monastery in Korea:

An Event of Art as Writing

Lewis Lancaster, UC Berkeley

October 24

Japan’s Sacred Shinto Shrines: Ise and Izumo

Laura Allen, Independent Scholar

October 31

Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) Palaces in Seoul, Korea

Kumja Paik Kim, Asian Art Museum

November 7

Where’s the Zen: Art at the Daitokuji Monastery, Japan

Gregory Levine, UC Berkeley

November 14

No lecture; please attend Afghan Symposium at UC Berkeley

November 21

The Best of the West in Central Asian Art:

Or Blame it on the Sasanians!

Guitty Azarpay, UC Berkeley

November 28

No Class

December 5

Samarkand and Bukhara between the Turks and the Mongols

Renata Holod, University of Pennsylvania

December 12

Women’s Space and Place in Begram, Afghanistan

Sanjyot Mehendale, UC Berkeley