Conference: Refiguring Chinese Religious Art: Buddhist Devotion and Funerary Practice

The University of Chicago hosts a two-day conference examining the relationship between art and religious practices in Chinese Buddhism

This conference focuses on Buddhism and ancestor veneration because their relationship in Chinese art provides an important basis to understand the motivation, function, and form of numerous works and ritual structures. Based on this understanding, the conference has two interrelated purposes. The first is to conduct more systematic investigations of images, objects, architectural structures, and historical situations that reflect the interaction and interpenetration of Buddhist devotion and funerary practice. The second is to articulate broader analytical methods and interpretative approaches based on such historical investigations in order to show larger historical patterns. Scholars from different fields including art historians, cultural historians, and scholars of Chinese religion?and different institutions, including the University of Chicago, will explore the relationship between Buddhist devotion and ancestor veneration in Chinese art on both historical and theoretical levels. Sponsored by the Center for the Art of East Asia, the China Committee and Korea Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies and The Adelyn Russell Bogert Fund of the Franke Institute for the Humanities.