Courses

Students in the Ph.D. program in East Asian art  spend two years completing coursework before sitting  for the General Exam by the end of the G3 year. Course offerings are abundant at Harvard and are selected in close consultation with faculty advisers to ensure that students fill in gaps where necessary, delve deeply into specialized areas and practical training, and expand their horizons by putting their work in broad humanistic context. Coursework and term papers are the building blocks for the dissertation and future scholarly work and they provide a space to test out ideas, to strengthen one's analytical rigor,  and to develop new conceptual frameworks.

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China

Courses cover the entire range of Chinese art including early tombs, Buddhist cave shrines, scroll paintings from the Song to the modern era, and conceptually focused seminars. 

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Korea

Past courses have been offered by visiting faculty on Korean ceramics and Buddhist art. The Harvard Art Museums holds one of the largest Korean art collections in the United States. 

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Japan

Courses include surveys on the history of Japanese art, woodblock prints, and architecture. Graduate seminars focus on themes such as narrative painting, gender and sexuality in Japanese art, Edo painting, sculpture, medieval ink painting, and the modern period. 

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East Asia

Professors associated with the program collaborate on a variety of courses. Interregionalism is an important component in all of the courses taught in the program.