ARTH 2805 - [Material Worlds: Trade and the Arts of Asia]

(crosslisted) ASIAN 2285, VISST 2805
(GHB) (CA-AS)

Next offered 2018-2019. 4 credits. Student option grading.

K. McGowan, A. Pan.

Trade in and to Asia proved to be a key force in creating our modern “globalized” world. The Indian Ocean and the China Seas converged on Southeast Asia, where a cosmopolitan array of ships from every shore plied their trade, set sail, and returned with the monsoon winds. People, goods, and ideas also traveled on camelback across the undulating contours of the Gobi Desert, connecting India, the Near East and Central Asia with China, Korea, and Japan. This course introduces students to the raw ingredients of things in motion, poised interactively in time and space, as material worlds collide. Wood, bamboo, bronze, clay, earthenware, ink, spices, textiles and tea - students will navigate sites of encounter at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum from pre modern to the present.