Module Homepage

Module Schedule - updated on 5 March 2025

Module Handbook

Weekly Reading List

Zoom link for online lectures

Discussion Forum

Student Presentations - Group Allocation

Useful Links

Analysing and Exploring the Arts Moodle page

SOAS-Alphawood Asian Art moodle page

SOAS Library homepage

Practical Tips & Support

SOAS Student Learning Centre

Signing in to Zoom using your SOAS account

Citations, References and Bibliographies

Managing your reading

Welcome Materials

Introduction to Moodle

Viewing pre-recorded lectures using Panopto

SOAS Code of Conduct

Pre-Course Reading

Pre-Course Recommended Reading List

Pre-Course Recommended Reading Folder

Critical Thinking and Current Methods

Critical Thinking and Current Methods Discussion Forum

Week 5

Week 8

Lecture Slides: Collecting and Curating Chinese Art

Week 9

Lecture Slides: Manchu Women: Gendered Dress and Adornment - Ms Fu Yingbai

Week 10

Lecture Slides: Chinas Modernities - Xinrui Zhang

Week 1

Lecture PDFs

Recommended Reading

Clunas, Craig. ‘Art in the Tomb’, Art in China (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 15-35.

Ebrey, Patricia. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) pp. 10-86.

Ma Chengyuan. ‘Ritual Bronzes – Epitome of Ancient Chinese Civilization’, in H. Rogers ed. China: 5000 Years, pp. 69-74.

Rawson, Jessica. ‘The First Emperor’s Tomb’, in Jane Portal ed. The First Emperor (London, British Museum Press, 2007), pp.115-57.

So, Jenny. ‘Innovation in Ancient Chinese Metalwork’, in H. Rogers ed. China: 5000 Years, pp. 75-88.

So, Jenny, Early Chinese jades in the Harvard Art Museums, (Yale UP: 2019), pp 49-100.

Further Reading

Fong, Wen ed. et al. The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from the People’s Republic of China. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1980).

Hay, Jonathan. “Toward a Disjunctive Diachronics of Chinese Art History.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 40 (2001): 101–11.

Loewe, Michael et al. ed. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth. ‘Jade as Material and Epoch’, in H. Rogers ed., China: 5000 Years (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998), pp. 36-48.

Yang, Xiaoning. ‘Art and Early Chinese Archaeological Materials’, Companion to Chinese Art. (Oxford, John Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc. 2016), pp. 91-110.

Week 2

Week 2 Tutorials

Lecture PDFs

Recommended Reading

Knight, Michael. ‘So Fine a Luster: Chinese Lacquerwares’, in H. Rogers ed., China: 5000 Years, pp. 89-97.

Pierson, Stacey. Earth, Fire, and Water: Chinese Ceramic Technology (London: Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 1996).

Rainey, Lee Dian. Confucius and Confucianism: The Essentials. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 45-61.

Watt, James C.Y. ‘Art and History in China from the Third to the Eighth Century’, in James C.Y. Watt et al, China: Dawn of A Golden Age, pp. 3-45.

Zhixin Jason Sun. ‘Making of China’, Age of Empires. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017), pp. 1-17.

Further Reading

Brunning, Sue, Yu-Ping Luk, Elisabeth R. O’Connell, Tim Williams, and British Museum. Silk Roads. (London: The British Museum, 2024).

Ebrey, Patricia. ‘Some Elements in the Intellectual and Religious Context of Chinese Art,’ in H. Rogers ed. China 5000 Years, pp. 36-48.

Wu Hung. ‘Realities of Life After Death: Constructing a Posthumous World,’ in H. Rogers ed. China 5000 Years, pp. 103- 112.

Wu Hung. ‘Introduction’ and ‘Coda’, Art of the Yellow Springs: Understanding Chinese Tombs, (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010), pp. 7-16, 219-233.

Week 3

Week 3 Tutorials

Lecture PDFs

Recommended Reading

Leidy, Denise Patry, ‘Buddhism and Buddhist Sculpture in China: A Brief Overview’, pp. 3-17.

Lin, James C.S. ed. The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 43-67.

Little, Stephen. ‘Taoism and the Arts of China’, in Stephen Little ed. Taoism and the Arts of China (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), pp. 13-31.

McCausland, Shane. ’Fragments of the Precious Mirror’, in Martin Powers et al. eds, A Companion to Chinese Art (John Wiley &amp; Sons, 2015), pp. 115-135.

Zhang, H ed. Masterpieces of Chinese Painting: 700-1900. (London: V&amp;A Press, 2013). Introduction, pp. 11-39

Further Reading

Abe, Stanley K. Ordinary Images. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002)

Chun-Fang Yu. ‘Introduction’, ‘Major Buddhist Sutras and Treatises of Chinese Buddhism’ and ‘Cults of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas’, Buddhism A Thematic History, (Honolulu: University of Honolulu Press, 2020) pp. 1-96.

Kieschnick, John and Meir Shahar, ‘Introduction’ in John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar eds. India in the Chinese Imagination, (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), pp. 1-9.

Miller, James. Daoism: A Short Introduction. (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003)

McCausland, Shane. ‘The Admonitions Scroll Scene by Scene’ in First Masterpiece of Chinese Painting (London: British Museum Press, 2003), pp. 52-81.

Su Bai, ‘Buddha Images of the Northern Plain, 4th-6th Century, in James C.Y. Watt et al, China: Dawn of A Golden Age, pp. 79-87.

Katherine Tsiang, ‘Visualising the Divine in Medieval China’, in Martin Powers et al. eds, A Companion to Chinese Art, pp. 158-176.

Wu Hung. ‘The Origins of Chinese Painting’, in Yang Xin et al, Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 59-85.

Week 4

Yang, Xiaoning. ‘Art and Early Chinese Archaeological Materials’, Companion to Chinese Art. (Oxford, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2016), pp. 91-110.

McCausland, Shane. ’Fragments of the Precious Mirror’, in Martin Powers et al. eds, A Companion to Chinese Art (John Wiley & Sons, 2015), pp. 115-135.

Zhang, H ed. Masterpieces of Chinese Painting: 700-1900. (London: V&A Press, 2013). Introduction, pp. 11-39

Kerr, Rose. Song Ceramics (London: V&A, 2004), chapters 2-6, pp.26-83.

Zhang, H. ed. Masterpieces of Chinese Painting: 700-1900 (London: V&A Press. 2013). (Introduction, pp. 11-39.)

Leidy, Denise. ‘Chinese Decorative Arts’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 25/1 (1997) (for this week and 9 & 10).