Led by series editors Prof Sussan Babaie, Professor of the Arts of Iran and Islam, and Prof Stephen Whiteman, Professor of the Art and Architecture of China, the Cultural History of Asian Art (CHoAA) project represents the most ambitious history of the arts of Asia published in English to date. Drawing on a team of over 60 editors and authors working across six volumes, CHoAA incorporates emerging methodologies and approaches to present new interpretations of the arts across East, West, South, Southeast, and Central Asia over the last 2500 years. It offers an innovative vision of Asian art for scholars, students, and general readers alike. A Cultural History of Asian Art will appear with in 2028.
CHoAA takes what we term a ‘trans-Asias’ approach to the study of Asian art. Trans-Asias seeks to interpret art through the lens of transcultural connectivity and concurrence while also being rooted in the particularities of the local. As such, trans-Asias offers a framework for exploring the arts of Asia that accounts for trans-cultural and trans-historical circulation and connection, rather than seeing art as fundamentally of one culture or one nation. Trans-Asias deploys contextual perspectives in order to prioritise the collaborative expertise of multiple researchers across disciplines and cultural and linguistic specialisms to better understand the ways in which art is necessarily and simultaneously of ‘one place’ and ‘multiple places’.
The volumes will share a number of broader thematic concerns and contextual perspectives, including mobility, connectivity, materiality, spatiality, faith and belief, attention to the totality of humanity, authenticity, and temporality. Deploying these overarching perspectives will encourage the authors to look beyond conventional binaries such as religious vs secular, civic vs political, and popular vs elite; to be alert to issues of gender, race, and ethnicity throughout; and to think in new ways about the construction of culturally situated meaning through art.
Recognizing the impossibility of a comprehensive history of Asian art, CHoAA takes a very broad approach to defining ‘arts’ and invites authors and readers to think across media, and social and cultural contexts, rather than being constrained by conventional categories. Socio-political contexts serve as the animating framework for the series as a whole. Examples include art and its meaning within Asia’s diverse religious cultures, such as Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism; practices of collecting and displaying art across different social and spatial contexts; technological developments in artistic production; the evolving relationship between the arts and sciences; image making as representing gender, class, race, and ethnicity; and the role of conflict, war, and disaster in histories of art.
Organised by Professor Sussan Babaie, Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam and Professor Stephen Whiteman, Professor of the Art and Architecture of China
Learn more about CHoAA
For any questions, please contact the series editors, Sussan Babaie (sussan.babaie@courtauld.ac.uk) and Stephen Whiteman (stephen.whiteman@courtauld.ac.uk).
Series editors
Sussan Babaie, The Courtauld, University of London
Stephen Whiteman, The Courtauld, University of London
Volume 1: A Cultural History of Asian Art in Antiquity, 550 BCE–600 CE
Editors: Matthew P. Canepa, University of California, Irvine, and Kate A. Lingley, University of Hawai?i at Mānoa
Contributors:
Petya Andreeva, Vassar College, USA
Matthew P. Canepa, University of California, Irvine, USA
Henry P. Colburn, Bryn Mawr College, USA
Moizza S. Elahi, University of Toronto, Canada
Kate A. Lingley, University of Hawai?i at Mānoa, USA
Lauren Morris, University of Freiburg, Germany
Penny Pan, Sun Yat-sen University, China
Tamara Sears, Rutgers University, USA
Volume 2: A Cultural History of Asian Art in the Middle Period, 600–1200
Editors: Oya Pancaro?lu, Bo?azi?i University, and Susan Whitfield, University of East Anglia
Contributors:
Raghunath Akarsh, Harvard University, USA
Annie Chan, Ludwig Maximilian Universit?t München, Germany
Louis Copplestone, Victoria & Albert Museum, UK
Zaruhi Hakobyan, Yerevan State University, Armenia
Zsuzsanna Gulacsi, Northern Arizona University, USA
Lilit Mikayelyan, Russian Armenian University, Armenia
Oya Pancaro?lu, Bo?azi?i University, Turkey
Mary-Louise Totton, Western Michigan University, USA
Susan Whitfield, University of East Anglia, UK
Rebecca Wrightson, University of Rhode Island, USA
Volume 3: A Cultural History of Asian Art in the Long Mongol Period, 1200–1500
Editors: Sussan Babaie, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and Halle O’Neal, University of Edinburgh
Contributors:
Sussan Babaie, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, UK
Dasdondog Bayarsaikhan, Chinggis Khan National Museum, Mongolia
Marco Brambilla, Independent Scholar, Italy
Youn-mi Kim, Ewha Womans University, Korea
Amanda Caterina Leong, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, UK
Sujatha Meegama, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, UK
Henning von Mirbach, University of Cambridge, UK
Amin Moradi, Otto-Friedrich-Universit?t Bamberg, Germany
Elena Paskaleva, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Halle O’Neal, University of Edinburgh, UK
Eiren Shea, Grinnell College, USA
Volume 4: A Cultural History of Asian Art in the Early Modern Period, 1500–1800
Editors: Peyvand Firouzeh, University of Cambridge, and Stephen Whiteman, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
Contributors:
Panggah Ardiyansyah, SOAS, University of London, UK
Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia, Hidden Stories Project, Canada and USA
Sinem Casale, University of Minnesota, USA
Wen-shing Chou, Hunter College, City University of New York, USA
Anna Grasskamp, University of Oslo, Norway
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Occidental College, USA
Sahar Hosseini, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Sylvia Houghteling, Bryn Mawr College, USA
Dipti Khera, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, USA
Drisana R. Misra, Cornell University, USA
Meha Priyadarshini, University of Edinburgh, UK
Volume 5: A Cultural History of Asian Art in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1800–1920
Editors: Preeti Chopra, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yeewan Koon, University of Hong Kong
Contributors:
Hala Auji, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
Kit Brooks, Princeton Art Museum, Princeton University, USA
Preeti Chopra, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
Talinn Grigor, University of California, Davis, USA
Boreth Ly, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Yeewan Koon, University of Hong Kong, China
Suppya Hélène Nut, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), France
Sugata Ray, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Mira Xenia Schwerda, Carleton College, USA
Volume 6: A Cultural History of Asian Art in the Modern and Contemporary World, 1920–today
Editors: Wulan Dirgantoro, University of Melbourne, and Pamela Karimi, Cornell University
Contributors:
Charlotte Bank, Ludwig Maximilian Universit?t München, Germany
Walker Downey, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA
Putra Hidayatullah, Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry, Indonesia
Di Liu, University of Cambridge, UK
Sandip K. Luis, Jamia Millia Islamia, India
Katsushi Nakagawa, Yokohama University, Japan
Olga Nefedova, HSE University, Russia
Minna Valjakka, University of Helsinki, Finland
Jennifer Way, University of North Texas, USA
Michelle Wun Ting Wong, University of Hong Kong, China
