SILK ROAD SEMINAR – full program – Sept 11 2014 to April 30 2015

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Fall 2014

From Excavation to Explication: New Approaches to the Silk Road,September 11, 2014
Presenters:

Valerie Hansen, Professor, Department of History, Yale University
“Whose Silk Road: When and Where Exactly?”

Eugene Y. Wang, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University“The Silk Road Before the Silk Road”

Discussant: James Millward, Professor, Department of History, Georgetown University

Ancient Eurasian Steppe Networks, October 9, 2014 
Presenters:

Michael Frachetti, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis
“Complexity, Interaction, and Social Participation along Prehistoric ‘Silk Roads’ (2500-250 BC)”

Sören Stark, Assistant Professor, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
“Nomads, Traders, and a Veiled Prophet: Recent Archaeological Research on the Long Wall of Bukhara”

Discussant: Chris Thornton, Lead Program Officer, Research, Conservation and Exploration, National Geographic Society
 

Special Exhibition: Photographs by Benoy Behl: October 15 – December 5, 2014

Opening reception: October 23, 2014, 5-7:30pm, with artist’s talk at 5:30pm
Location: Walsh Building, Georgetown University campus (1221 36th St. NW, Washington, DC 20057)
For more information, please visit the gallery website.

The Iranian Connection: October 30, 2014 
Presenters:
Matteo Compareti, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice
“Fantastic Creatures on the Sino-Sogdian Funerary Monuments: On Teratological Syncretism along the Silk Road”

Albert E. Dien, Professor Emeritus, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University
“The Sogdian Diaspora along the Silk Road: A Review and Reflections”

Discussant: Michelle C. Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Georgetown University
 

Case Study of an Oasis City: Dunhuang: November 13, 2014 
Presenters:

Paul Copp, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
“Ritual Handbooks and Vernacular Buddhism at Dunhuang”

Stephen F. Teiser, D. T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies and Professor of Religion, Department of Religion, Princeton University
“Institutions of Literacy and the Dunhuang Corpus”

Discussant: Francisca Cho, Associate Professor, Department of Theology, Georgetown University

Silk Road Manuscripts and Antiquities: Collecting and Transmission: December 11, 2014 
Presenters:

Tamara Chin, Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University
“On Silk Road ‘Re-Discovery’: Constructing the Antiquarian Silk Road, 1900-1980”

Sam van Schaik, Project Manager, International Dunhuang Project, British Library 
“The Silk Road and the Transmission of Buddhism: Evidence from Sanskrit Manuscripts”

Discussant: Robert DeCaroli, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, George Mason University

 

Spring 2015:

A Demise Greatly Exaggerated: the Silk Road in the Early Modern Era: January 8, 2015 
Presenters:

Matthew Romaniello, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
“The Eurasian Drug Trade: Commodities and Medical Knowledge between East and West”

Scott Levi, Associate Professor, Department of History, Ohio State University
“Networks of Trade in Early Modern Central Asia”

Discussant: Carol Benedict, Professor, Department of History, Georgetown University

Science on the Silk Road: January 29, 2015 
Presenters:

Carla Nappi, Canada Research Chair of Early Modern Studies and Associate Professor, Department of History, University of British Columbia
“Paper Dolls: An Architectonics of Translation in Early Modern Eurasia”

C. Pierce Salguero, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University-Abington
“Positioning the Silk Road in the ‘Fractal History’ of Global Medicine”

Discussant:, Kathryn M. Olesko, Associate Professor, Department of History, Georgetown University

Islamic Encounters with Sinic and Buddhistic Realms: February 19, 2015
Presenters:

Johan Elverskog, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University
“‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani and the Buddhists of Iran, 1258-1328”

David Roxburgh, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
“Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash and His Visit to Beijing, 1419-22”

Discussant:, Mika Natif, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, George Washington University

Performance and Performativity: March 19, 2015 
Presenters:

Theodore Levin, Arthur R. Virgin Professor of Music, Department of Music, Dartmouth College
“The Silk Road as Jam Session, Then and Now”

Ingrid Furniss, Assistant Professor, Department of Art, Lafayette College
“Strumming Strings along the Ancient Silk Road: Archaeological Evidence for Lutes and their Performance in the First Centuries CE”

Discussant: J. Lawrence Witzleben, Professor, Department of Ethnomusicology, University of Maryland School of Music

Institutional Settings: April 9, 2015 
Presenters:

Roland Lin Chih-Hung, Programme Specialist, Asia and Pacific Unit, UNESCO
“Heritage Conservation, International Cooperation, and Capacity Development: UNESCO’s Recent Projects for the Silk Roads Serial and Transnational World Heritage Nomination in Central Asia”

Susan Whitfield, Director, International Dunhuang Project, British Library
“Defining a Cultural Silk Road for Today: IDP and Negotiating the Landscape of International Collaboration”

Discussant: J. Keith Wilson, Curator of Ancient Chinese Art, Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution

On-Site Session at the Freer Gallery: April 24, 2015 (2:30-4:30pm)

Presenter: Stephen Allee, Associate Curator for Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution
“Two Dunhuang Paintings in the Freer Gallery of Art: History, Content, and Materials”

Discussant: Miki Morita, Sawyer Seminar Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Art and Art History, Georgetown University

Silk Road Politics and Policies: Security, Energy and Eurasian Land Bridges: April 30, 2015 
Presenters:

Marlene Laruelle, Research Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
“Envisioning a Region: China’s Silk Road and Russia’s Eurasia”

Li Lifan, Associate Professor and Assistant Director of the Institute of International Relations, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
“Building an Interest Community: New Development of the Energy Club in the Silk Road Economic Belt”

Discussant: Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs, Elliott School, George Washington University