Wen-shing Chou: Taming Nature on Mount Wutai: Buddhist Visions of an Earthly Paradise
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
About the Event
For as long as the sacred mountain range of Mount Wutai in northern China has been a famed international pilgrimage destination, its pictures have circulated across the Buddhist world, serving as souvenir, guide, and surrogate for the mountain. Surviving examples from the ninth century onward have attracted much scholarly decipherment for their mediation of a thriving pilgrimage and devotional culture. But what has been ignored is a conspicuous lack of pictorial attention towards the landscape of the mountain itself. This lecture rethinks the place of “nature” among pictures of Mount Wutai. By bringing to the fore a visual narrative that celebrates the subjugation of natural forces and the transformation of natural resources, I explore alternative ways to understand the relationship between ecology and sacred geography.
About the Speaker
Wen-shing Chou is Associate Professor of Art History at Hunter College and the Graduate Center
Global Approaches to Sacred Space is generously funded as part of the SGS Global Research Workshop series with further support from the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Art and Art History, the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis.