Co-hosted by Yale Center Beijing and the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University.

Time and Location

Monday, August 15, 2016
Registration: 6:30-7:00 pm
Talk and Q&A: 7:00-9:00 pm

Yale Center Beijing
8 Jianguomenwai Avenue, 36th Floor, Tower B, IFC Building (Yong’anli Station, Exit C)

Registration and Fees

Ticket:
Purchase in advance: RMB 15 for students; RMB 60 for others.
Purchase at the door: RMB 100.

Click HERE to register via EVENTBANK.

Please email yalecenterbeijing@yale.edu if you have any questions, or call Yale Center Beijing at (10) 5909 0200.

The Event

Dr. Kim and Dr. Yiengpruksawan will discuss recent discoveries from their trip in Northern China along the Silk Road, an ancient web of trade routes that connected eastern and western societies. Their work concerns the intersections between Buddhism and cultures across Asia, as well as how the study of these intersections allows for greater understanding of trade in the modern era. This most recent trip, into Tangut and Kitan territories, is part of a larger initiative called the Yale Silk Road, which was started by Yiengpruksawan in 2006 and is now directed by Kim. The project has assembled over 11,000 images of major sites in the Silk Road region..

LANGUAGE

The language of the event will be English.

The Speaker(s)

Youn-mi Kim
Assistant Professor of History of Art, Yale University

Professor Kim is a specialist in Chinese Buddhist art, but her broader interest in cross-cultural relationships between art and ritual also extends to Korean and Japanese materials. She is particularly interested in symbolic rituals, the interplay between visibility and invisibility in Buddhist art, and the sacred spaces and religious macrocosms created by religious architecture for imaginary pilgrimages. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled Art, Space, and Ritual in Medieval Buddhism: From a Liao Pagoda to Heian Japanese Esoteric Ritual.

Mimi Yiengpruksawan
Professor of History of Art, Yale University

Mimi Yiengpruksawan received a Ph.D. in Japanese art studies from UCLA in 1988. In her research and writing Yiengpruksawan focuses on Buddhist art and iconography with emphasis on political and social perspectives in the analysis of devotional imagery and ritual. Her methodological approach has always been cross-regional and interdisciplinary in nature, with a strong interest in the impact of the nonlocal and the catastrophic (ecological, environmental) on cultural production.