Institute of East Asian Art History The Making of Japanese Art History in the 20th Century
- Thursday, 3 September 2026, 11:00
- CATS · R.400.02.12 · Voßstraße 2 · 69115 Heidelberg
- Kristopher W. Kersey, University of California, Los Angeles
- Stephanie Su, University of Colorado, Boulder / Ishibashi Foundation Visiting Professor, Heidelberg University
- Maki Fukuoka, University of Leeds
More than 140 years have passed since European scholars, collectors, and institutions first articulated systematic frameworks for the study of Japanese art. Since then, „Japanese art history“ has been produced across multiple sites—universities, museums, exhibitions, and publications—both within Japan and beyond. After the institutional turn (seidoron), the question is: how has "Japanese art history," as both a subject and a discourse, been shaped, negotiated, and transcended in the twentieth century? This symposium provides a venue to reflect on how the discipline's epistemic frameworks, exclusions, and transnational entanglements were shaped—often outside, alongside, or prior to formal institutional consolidation.
Address
Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies
CATS R.400.02.12 | Second Floor
Voßstraße 2, Buildung 4400
69115 HeidelbergEvent Type
Symposium
Event Homepage
The symposium features 16 outstanding panel presentations by early-career scholars, an opening lecture by Prof. Kristopher Kersey (UCLA), a closing lecture by Prof. Maki Fukuoka (University of Leeds), and a book talk by the incoming Ishibashi Foundation Visiting Professor of Japanese art history for the winter semester 2026–27, Prof. Stephanie Su (University of Colorado, Boulder), on her recent publication History Painting Crossing Borders: A Transnational History of Modern Art in Early Twentieth-Century China and Japan (Leiden: Brill, 2025).
Everyone is welcome to all the panels and the three public lectures!
The symposium is organized by three Phd students of Japanese Art History, Fengyu Wang (Heidelberg University), Wei Sun (Heidelberg University), and Ruri Kawanami (Free University of Berlin), through the generous funding of the Graduate Initiative Grant of the Graduate Academy, Heidelberg University.