ARTH 391 Art and Its Changing Context: Vietnam & Cambodia

• Thursdays, 2:45pm-5:15pm
• Online: Access through Moodle
• Instructor: Dr. Marco Deyasi

Southeast Asia is a crossroads, where ancient cultures meet, change, and persevere. The religions and cultures of India and China famously meet in the Southeast Asian peninsula. But they are hardly the only ones. This course will focus on the art and culture of Vietnam and Cambodia, from c. 1,000 CE to the present. Of particular concern will be the cultural diversity of the area. Rather than project twenty-first century national borders into the past, we will instead focus on the persistence of cultural mixing in identity formation, including the appropriation and adoption of colonial ideas by local peoples—from Chinese Confucianism through to modern colonialism and twenty-first century globalization. In this way, we will be better equipped to interrogate the popular histories and myths about Vietnam and Cambodia that persist into the present, such as Angkor Wat as the exclusive symbol of Cambodia or Vietnam seen only through the lens of the American war there. This will be a story of cultural change and—simultaneously—persistence told through art, literature, architecture, and history.

This course will be as much a history course as an art history course. It is also an opportunity to study Asian culture here at Concordia. No prior coursework in art or history is required.

This remote/online course will have an optional synchronous component—weekly lectures that will be recorded. The entire course can be completed asynchronously.