Join us for a free one-day workshop for educators at the Japanese American National Museum, hosted by the USC U.S.-China Institute and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. This workshop will include a guided tour of the beloved exhibition Common Ground: The Heart of Community, slated to close permanently in January 2025. Following the tour, learn strategies for engaging students in the primary source artifacts, images, and documents found in JANM’s vast collection and discover classroom-ready resources to support teaching and learning about the Japanese American experience.
Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers from the MacLean Collection
The Crow Collection of Asian Art presents an exhibition of Tibetan book covers.
When:
April 2, 2016 10:00am to August 16, 2016 9:00pm
Where
Where:
Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers from the MacLean Collection is the first major exhibition to examine the subject of Tibetan book covers. For Tibetan Buddhists, books are a divine presence in which the Buddha lives and reveals himself, and they are venerated and handled with the utmost respect. Tibetan book cover design has more than a thousand-year history in which stylistic influences from Kashmir, India, Nepal, Central Asia, and later, China, were amalgamated into a uniquely Tibetan creation. In turn, Tibetan innovations such as the covers’ large size and amount of embellishment later influenced the covers of Mongolian and Chinese books. The majority of covers in Protecting Wisdom are Tibetan Buddhist, but included in the exhibition are a rare Bon-religion cover, two covers from Mongolia as well as an important pair of covers produced for the Ming Chinese emperor Yongle in circa 1411.
The decoration on these covers exhibits the supreme skill and consummate artistic expression of the finest artisans. Decorative techniques used on the covers include carving, incising, painting, gilding, inlay, as well as combinations of these techniques as highlighted in the exhibition by photographic enlargements of details. The carving ranges from light incisions to very high relief set in deep hollows in which figures play in light and shadow. Embellishment can be found on the covers’ outside and inside faces as well as on the thick edges, an area that functions like a spine and is visible when the books are housed on library shelves. Painting can be the primary form of decoration, but it often accompanies the carved decoration in large areas such as the borders or in brightly painted details that highlight the design, such as a deity’s red lips or the green-and-black scaled tail of a snake deity.
Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers from the MacLean Collection presents a stunning visual display that together with the interpretative material, illuminates a virtually unknown type of art, one that will charm and intrigue both those familiar and unfamiliar with Tibetan art.
Members’ Preview
Thursday, March 31, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Join us for an exclusive members’ preview reception celebrating Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers from the MacLean Collection.
Cost:
Free
Phone Number:
214-979-6430
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October 20, 2024
October 20, 2024
Please join us for the Grad Mixer! Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, Enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow students across USC Annenberg. Graduate students from any field are welcome to join, so it is a great opportunity to meet fellow students with IR/foreign policy-related research topics and interests.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2024 - 3:00pm
Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow international students.
Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 4:00pm
Join us for an in-person conversation on Thursday, November 7th at 4pm with author David M. Lampton as he discusses his new book, Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War. The book examines the history of U.S.-China relations across eight U.S. presidential administrations.