Fall 2014

Please visit the main Schedule of Events page for information regarding the time and location of each seminar.  Participation is restricted to current faculty, academic staff, and students.

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

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

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
"How Would Marco Polo Have Been Painted in Yuan China?"

Discussant:
Professor, Department of History, Georgetown University

Ancient Eurasian Steppe Networks
October 9, 2014 

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

Assistant Professor, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
Beyond Byzantium, Iran and China: Elite Representation among the 6th-8th Century Türks

Discussant:
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:
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California-Berkeley
“Fantastic Creatures on the Sino-Sogdian Funerary Monuments: On Teratological Syncretism along the Silk Road”

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

Discussant:
Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Georgetown University

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

Presenters:
Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
Seals, Silk Roads, and the Sources of Chinese Buddhism

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

Discussant:
Associate Professor, Department of Theology, Georgetown University

Silk Road Manuscripts and Antiquities: Collecting and Transmission
December 11, 2014
Please note: this seminar will begin at 5:30pm.

Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University
On Inventing Silk Road Studies"

Project Manager, International Dunhuang Project, British Library 
Married Monks and the Transmission of Buddhism on the Silk Road

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