James A. Millward, Professor of Inter-societal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of History at Georgetown University, is a specialist on Central Eurasian and Chinese history. His books Beyond the Pass and Eurasian Crossroads concern the Xinjiang region. His most recent book, The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction, presents an interpretive essay on pan-Eurasian exchanges to a broader audience. His current research project, "The Eurasian Lute: Dissemination and Transculturation of Iconic Chordophones" will be a cultural history of barbat / oud / pipa - type lutes on the Silk Road using archaeological, art historical and literary as well as other textual and musicological sources. In 2010-11, Jim served as President of the Central Eurasian Studies Society.
Michelle C. Wang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Georgetown University. Her research interests concern Huayan and tantric motifs in Tang Dynasty (618-907) Buddhist mural paintings of the Mogao cave shrines at Dunhuang, located in Gansu Province in northwestern China. Current publications based upon this research include an annotated bibliography for Oxford Bibliographies Online on “Buddhist Art and Architecture on the ‘Silk Road’” and an article titled “Changing Conceptions of “Maṇḍala” in Tang China: Ritual and the Role of Images” for Material Religion. Her book manuscript in progress is titled Maṇḍalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang.
Administrative Staff
Kathleen Gallagher came to Georgetown in 1996 as an administrative assistant in the Department of Italian. She then spent three years in the Department of Psychology before coming to the Department of History as the administrative officer. She now staffs the Georgetown Institute for Global History, conferences hosted by the Department of History, and seminars and conferences offered by the Americas Initiative Program. Her interest in Critical Silk Road Studies stems from an interest in the textiles of the many regions of the Silk Road and of nomadic peoples in general.
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