Global Arc

Antioch has been a major point of contact between the Mediterranean region and Asia from ancient times to the present. Students in this new course will get exclusive access to the artifacts and records of Princeton's Antioch excavations of the 1930s and will read and discuss sources and studies on the history of the city from its Hellenistic origins to recent activity by ISIS in the area. Attention will be paid to the city's geological setting and changes in its cultural identity and ecological environment. Each student will work on a research project, and all students will collaborate on the production of a public website about Antioch.

A topic in Chinese or Japanese art, explored in depth. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 1, 2, or 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar. Prerequisite: a course in Asian art or the instructor's permission.

Direct and regular contact between China and Europe in the early modern period brought new artistic forms and expressions to China and reconfigured the entire picture of Chinese art. Even though China appeared to have been the recipient of European art, it did not play a passive role; in fact, Chinese agents, including emperors, artists, literati, and merchants, appropriated European artistic resources according to their own agendas. This seminar will tackle the multiple dimensions of how European art worked at the Chinese imperial court and in local societies from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.

This seminar examines the diverse arts employed in chanoyu, a Japanese practice centered on the drinking of whisked tea, including ceramics, painting and calligraphy, bamboo, and architecture. The focus will be on the sixteenth century, and among the topics considered are the physical and conceptual adaptations of objects (both indigenous and imported) for chanoyu, the practice of bestowing names on things, tea aesthetics, and the creation of multi-medium ensembles. The seminar will be based on discussions of assigned readings and, as well, on the study and use of actual tea objects (a package of which will be sent to each student).

A course about Chinese concepts of nature and human nature, theories and traditions of landscape art. Weekly consideration of such themes as replicating and transforming the landscape; submission to/control of nature; landscape as political allegory; pilgrimage and exile; gardens and artists' studios; landscape magic in ancient China; endangered pandas, power dams, and the technology of modern art. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 or 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar.

The patrons of Chinese painting and many of its leading artists were politicians by profession, both royal and commoner-bureaucrats, and much of their art was designed to fulfill political functions: propaganda, moral self-cultivation, self-advertisement and self-consolation, expressions of support, resistance, and resignation. Half of the course covers premodern China, half covers the 20th century. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 or 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar. Prerequisite: a course in Chinese art history or instructor's permission.

An examination of Japanese woodblock prints from the 17th through the 19th century. This seminar considers formal and technical aspects of woodblock prints, and the varied subject matter, including the "floating world" of prostitution and the theater, Japanese landscape, and burgeoning urban centers. Students explore the links between literature and prints, especially the re-working of elite classical literary themes in popular prints. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 or 3 distribution requirement. Prerequisite: at least one course in art history or Japanese studies, or permission of instructor. One three-hour seminar.

This course focuses on the genre of portraiture in China, examining different types of pictures, sitters, ideologies, and representations. Portraiture in China has largely been ignored or dismissed in modern critical scholarship. The tradition of portraiture, however, is both rich and varied, as evidenced by the writings of early Chinese critics and theorists as well as by the numerous terms for 'portrait' and 'portrait making' that they used. We will consider the problem of defining what a portrait is, the formal aspects of portrait making, and the questions of individuality, likeness, authenticity, and function.

The Song Dynasty has long been considered the high point of Chinese painting, representing a classical period to which later artists consistently looked back.This seminar will explore the artistic qualities and development of landscape, figure, and flower-and-bird painting and will consider main issues concerning these genres. Such issues include the relative importance of different genres, the relationship between the natural and the human world, the roles of the court and literati in producing art, and the materiality and visuality of Song painting.

This seminar examines the visual arts over the course of Japan's history and, especially, how contemporary Japan makes use of its visual past. The primary focuses are painting, sculpture, architecture, and ceramics, though literature also plays a prominent role. Each week's session is designed to cover an aspect of Japan's visual cultures and build a base of knowledge upon which students will engage Japan, in Japan, over fall break. The seminar will travel to Japan for eight days and, based in Nara, Kyoto, and Tokyo, will visit many of the sites of art studied in Princeton, including temples, museums, and ceramic studios.