APPROACH: Interdisciplinary teaching

Site seminars utilizing a multidisciplinary approach have proven very effective in training graduate students and developing new fields.  Extended residence for two to four weeks, combined with lectures by experts in the field, allow the intensive study of a specific temple, a complex of excavations, or a regional artistic style.  Examples of recent seminars include the Silkroad Foundation’s seminar on Dunhuang Art and Society, administered by NING Qiang (Connecticut College), Walter Spink’s (University of Michigan) seminar at Ajanta (Maharashtra, India), and the Luce-funded seminar at Kizil (Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China), organized by Angela Howard (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey).  In addition to teaching about the specific locale, site seminars introduce the methodologies of archaeology, art history, architecture, social history, and religious studies, and they allow students and faculty to learn from the leading authorities in the field.

In Art History art is the primary subject in itself, even as visual images and artifacts are increasingly being used to illustrate ideas at the heart of other disciplines.  In the study of Tibetan art, access to mobile art (tangkas and small sculptures) in museums and private collections in the West is growing substantially, but the primary reliable benchmarks for dating and stylistic development remain the sculptures, paintings, temples, and other monuments still preserved in situ in central and western Tibet.  The importance of firsthand study of these primary source materials cannot be overstressed, and the fact that Tibetan art history is underdeveloped within Art History departments in American universities can be tied at least in part to Tibet’s geographical and political isolation from the previous generation of scholars.  This site seminar will help add momentum to and build a stronger foundation for doctoral programs in Tibetan art in the U.S., which are still in a fledgling state.

Buddhist Studies as a field of study was founded on comparative philology and the study of texts in the nineteenth century, but more recently it has moved toward a more interdisciplinary model.  Scholars trained in the study of scripture are increasingly learning about art, while art historians are expanding their already strong interest in cultural studies.  Furthermore, the compartmentalization of Buddhist studies into “Indo-Tibetan” and “Sino-Japanese” halves is beginning to break down, driven by the discovery of the many historical movements and figures that cross these traditional but largely artificial divides.  There are now several new examples of successful, long-term scholarly collaboration between art historians and religion scholars, including the Austrian-funded team at Tabo (culturally western Tibet but now Himachel Pradesh, India), engaging Deborah Klimburg-Salter and Christian Luczanits as art historians, and Paul Harrison, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, and Ernst Steinkellner as Buddhologists.