Art production for public display has been a component of every historical era. This institute explored ways visual arts can be interpreted and used to teach major themes in World History. Participants explored numerous interpretations of artworks, learning how to analyze pieces as:
- expressions of identity,
- tools for communicating abstract political or religious ideas,
- means of persuasion,
- measures of social status,
- commodities, and
- visual maps of change over time.
Presentation Summaries
Written by Timothy Doran and Simon Grote
Art and Power
How Do the Arts Feature in the "Big History" of Human Development?, Cynthia Brown
Paleolithic Art: Cognitive Aspects of Human Evolution, Tim Gill
Royal Art as Political Message in Ancient Mesopotamia, Catherine Foster
Panel on Museum Studies: Politics, Preservation, and Public Education
Deborah Clearwaters' slidedeck
Marjorie Schwarzer' slidedeck
National Identities Set in Stone
Figuring Authority in Classic Maya Monuments: Men, Women, and Ancestors, Rosemary Joyce
Qutb Minar: Religion and Power in 13th-Century India, Munis Faruqui
Martyrs' Memorials in Modern Lebanon, Lucia Volk
Empire, Religion and Shifting Identity
Orientalism in 19th-Century French Painting, Darcy Grigsby
Maintaining Ma'at: Iconography of Kingship in New Kingdom Temples, Cindy Ausec
The Map and the Territory: Political Uses of Buddhist Art in Late Imperial China, Patricia Berger
The Savior King: Buddhist Self-Representation in Angkorian Cambodia, Ian Lowman
Contesting the Past in Contemporary Mongolian Folk Music, Peter Marsh
Migration of Ideas through Popular Arts
Panel on Political Poster Art: China, Cuba, and the U.S.
Andrew Jones' slidedeck (Chinese Poster Art)
Lincoln Cushing's slidedeck (Cuban Poster Art)
Making It: Reality Television and Middle Class Aspirations in India, Raka Ray
Indonesian Puppet Theater, Natasha Reichle