Project

Art in Drama: Reading Dramatic Texts at the Interstices of Performance Culture and Visual Culture

Program

Henry Luce Foundation/ ACLS Program in China Studies Collaborative Reading-Workshop Grants

Department

Department of the History of Art & MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies

Abstract

This collaborative reading workshop shall add to our understanding of the visual dimension of drama in Ming and Qing China through an interdisciplinary approach to dramatic texts that portray or engage other forms of art, such as painting, gardening, woodblock printing, costuming, and performance arts (e.g., guqin-playing, female dance, ballad singing, and court pageantries, etc.). In this workshop, we bring together drama scholars with cross-genre, cross-media, and cross-disciplinary research projects all of which involve close reading of dramatic texts as a fundamental part of their scholarship. Each participant has proposed one to two dramatic texts at the center of their ongoing research projects to be the primary material for an intensive group discussion.