ARTH 4851 - [Performing Objects/Collecting Cultures]

(crosslisted)
(also ASIAN 4445, VISST 4851)(GB) (HA-AS)

4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ARTH 6851/ASIAN 6645.

K. McGowan.

The twin phenomena of performing and collecting are as old as time, and both require an intense entanglement with things. This seminar examines the significance of objects and their related texts within the field of Art History and, indeed, more broadly as they are “performed” and “collected” (sometimes both initiatives occurring simultaneously) in Asian Art and Culture. Various performative and collective containments will be mapped as the transcend boundaries: temporal, spatial, cultural, intertexual, and disciplinary. Masked dances and their costume elements, clay pots, bronzes, serpentine daggers, musical instruments, embroidered story cloths, shadow puppets, flora, fauna, and film will be explored.