Description
Gasparini's history offers critical perspectives that extend far beyond an outmoded notion of "Silk Road studies." Her cross-media work shows readers how certain material cultures are connected not only by the physical routes they take but also because of the meanings and interpretations these objects engage in various places. Transcending Patterns is at once art history, material and visual cultural history, Asian studies, conservatory studies, and linguistics.
About the Author
Mariachiara Garsparini received a PhD in transcultural studies and global art history from Heidelberg University, Germany. Her research focuses on Central Asian material culture, wall painting, artist's praxis, and Sino-Iranian and Turko-Mongol interactions. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Asia. Since 2015 she has been teaching Asian art in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Reviews
In deploying a transcultural framework, Mariachiara Gasparini demonstrates the ways in which the material can become more open to multiple meanings and mirror its multifaceted uses with a more flexible, interpretive framework. In her analysis of the material forms of silk in China, the Himalayan Kingdoms including Ladakh, and its constitution in Italy, it may be too soon to say whether Gasparini has single-handedly engineered a field-changing, barrier-breaking analysis of the stuff that brought the "Silk Road" trading routes into existence, but we can state with certainty that she has given researchers tools to fabricate concrete arguments for further study.
Book Information
ISBN 9780824877989
Author Mariachiara Gasparini
Format Hardback
Page Count 270
Imprint University of Hawai'i Press
Publisher University of Hawai'i Press
Weight(grams) 579g