The Art & Archaeology of the Silk Road, Portland State University, October 12, 2017

This international conference will feature a keynote presentation by Annette Juliano, Professor of Asian Art at the Newark branch of Rutgers University. We hope to offer a chance to reappraise key questions after shifts over the last two decades within the field.

We invite papers that explore the portable arts and built environment of the Silk Road from its beginnings through the period of its fragmentation under the Mongol Empire. Papers may investigate case studies in specific visual and material culture topics, archeological sites, or take a broader, comparative approach. We are particularly interested in having a geographic range of topics represented in the material shared at the conference in order to explore possible themes such as diplomacy in art, hybridity, exoticism, regionalism, and globalization looking at both the land and maritime Silk Road routes.

The language of the conference presentations will be English, and the presentations will be 20-minute papers grouped around themes for discussion panels following each set of talks. We also welcome proposals for panel.