Georgetown | IDP Lecture Series: Following the Silk Roads to North America

The Georgetown | IDP Project: Prospects for Collaboration and Research

This is an online event hosted on Zoom. Bookers are sent a link in advance giving access.

Miki Morita (Georgetown-IDP Project for North American Silk Road Collections) and Michelle C Wang (Georgetown University) introduce the Georgetown-IDP Project, its aims, and the results of the project to date. They also discuss prospects for research by placing objects from North American collections into the context of the worldwide dispersal of material culture from the overland silk routes, focusing in particular on the collecting and study of silk Buddhist banners.

Dr Miki Morita is the project manager of the Georgetown-IDP Project. She received a doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania with a focus on Buddhist art in the Turfan region during the period of the West Uyghur Kingdom. Prior to this project, she had worked on pieces in North American collections that demonstrate connections with Central Asian culture during her pre- and postdoctoral fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum and Georgetown University.

Dr Michelle C Wang is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Georgetown University. She is a specialist in the Buddhist and silk road art of northwestern China, primarily of the 6th–10th centuries. In addition to her recent publications on mandalas, she has also written about art and ritual, miracle tales of animated statues, the transcultural reception of Buddhist motifs, and text and image.