Sohbat-Yaji-Gathering: On the Frontier of Asian Arts

The Second Biennial Graduate Student Sohbat-Yaji-Gathering, to be held at Yale University on January 19-20, 2024, brings together graduate students working on all areas of Asian art (for example. but not limited to Islamic, Buddhist, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese) and their diasporas (for example, in Al-Andalus, North and East Africa, Oceana) that focus on sites, materials, and histories, and engage with new and underrepresented geographies, archives, and methodologies. We intend to connect and share their research and critically examine the structural biases, canons, and disciplinary boundaries imposed upon the study of Asian art by colonial/Euro-American modes of knowledge.

Registration Link: https://forms.gle/5GjdwWMi9niunYt46

Day 1

Friday, January 19th, 2024

1:45 – 3:00 PM Object Workshop at Yale University Art Gallery

3:10 – 3:15 PM – Opening Remarks at Loria 351

3:15 – 4:15 PM – Panel 1: Persianate Arts of the Books: Object, Body, Identity

            Discussant: Professor Kishwar Rizvi

-  Amanda Leong, UC Merced, ““I’d rather be married to someone I can control”: Rethinking Female Javanmardi (chivalry) in the Paintings of the Early Modern Persianate World”

-  Seher Agarwala, Columbia University, “She is Tall like the Alif: Bijapur’s Yoginis as Ideal Persian Beloveds”

4:15 – 4:30 PM – Coffee Break

4:30 – 6:00 PM – Keynote by Joan Kee, Professor of History of Art, University of Michigan

6:00 – 6:30 PM – Reception

Day 2

Saturday, January 20th, 2024

Loria 351

10:00 – 11:30 AM – Panel 1: Transnational Shapes

            Discussant: Professor Quincy Ngan

- Shruti Parthasarathy, UW-Madison, “Post-Amnesiac Identity through Visual Art: An Artist Case Study”

-Maya Varma, UCLA, “Archiving Resistance: Transnational Relations in the Dalit Panthers’ Little Magazines”

- Avani Sastry, UT-Austin, “A Certain Disorderliness: Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan’s The Incomplete Thombu and Historical Methodology”

- Carlo Tuason, USC, “Outsounding Hong Kong”

11:30 – 11:45 AM – Coffee Break

11:45 – 1:00 PM – Panel 2: Ancient and Medieval Religious Arts of Asia

            Discussant: Professor Sonam Kachru

- Victoria Andrews, Harvard University, “Water Spirits in a Desert: Naga Imagery and Ritual in Ladakh”

- Ava Bush, Harvard University, “Daruma Face: The Evolution of Daruma’s Iconographic Expression in Japan from the Medieval Period to Pre-Modern Period”

- Charlotte Gorant, Columbia University, “World of Signs: Re-evaluating Early Buddhist Narrative Art from the Bharhut Stupa (ca. 200 BCE – 100 CE)”

2:00 – 3:30 PM – Panel 3 – “Routes not Roots”

Discussant: Professor Allison Caplan

-  Juliana Fagua Arias, Cornell University, “Silken Blossoms and Alpaca Threads: South and East Asian Sources in a Peruvian Poncho”

- Kristin Enright, University of Colorado, Boulder, “Blue and White Ceramics in the Spanish Americas: A Pacific, Inter-American History”

- Vuk Vukovic, University of Pittsburg, “Global Signals: The Satellite Networks of Nam June Paik”

3:30 – 3:45 PM – Closing Remarks

3:45 – 5:00 PM – Reception