A Great Leap Forward for Modern Chinese Art History? Recent Publications in China and the United States—A Review Article

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 786-793
Author(s):  
Ralph C. Croizier
1997 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-532
Author(s):  
Vladimir I. Braginsky

The literature on the cultural interrelations of East and West published up to the present time is enormous. Even so, every new scholarly study in this field cannot but provoke interest, so important is the topic, particularly today in the era of so-called globalization. The books under review here, edited and introduced by Andrew Gerstle (SOAS) and Anthony Milner (ANU),1 are based on papers presented at conferences held by the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University. The theme of the conferences—‘Europe and the Orient‘—attracted a great number of specialists in art history, musicology, anthropology and history, Asianists and Europeanists, from Europe, the United States and Australia. It is worth noting that the most of the papers are based on published works in which their authors have discussed the same or closely related topics. In presenting the principal ideas of those publications, these collections of papers form a ‘miniature library’ of works on East-West comparative cultural studies. The interdisciplinarity of the articles—their extraordinary ‘polyphony’, the diversity of their often mutually contradictory and polemical approaches, judgements and evaluations—reveals the complexity, multifacetedness and theoretical difficulties which are only too characteristic of the study of comparative culture. The reader is here provided with quite a complete picture of the contemporary state of the field, as well as of the strong and weak sides of its investigations. This breadth of coverage is one of the main strengths of the volumes.


2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Jean S. Kang

Both Communist China of the early 1960s and North Korea of the 1990s posed significant policy challenges to the United States revolving around the important question of food aid. The Clinton administration was faced with the task of responding to the height of the North Korean famine, which was estimated to have taken place between 1995-1998. Interestingly, the dilemma that confronted the Clinton administration of whether to provide US food assistance to a nation considered an "enemy state" was reminiscent of the circumstances faced by the Kennedy administration with regard to the famine that scoured Communist China in the early 1960s. Estimated to have claimed nearly 30 million lives, the details of the Chinese famine resulting from the Great Leap Forward of 1958 have only recently been examined, as foreigners were unable to gain access to the PRC until nearly twenty years after the events. Similarly, only time will bring to surface the details of the famine in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, hereafter "DPRK") due to the country's present self-imposed isolation, comparable to that of the PRC in the 1960s. This study will examine the policy dilemma that confronted the United States with regard to the famine in Communist China following the Great Leap Forward in the 1960s and again in North Korea from 1993-2000. The divergent responses of the Kennedy administration and that of the Clinton administration will be studied, with a focus on Congressional discussions regarding the donation of US food aid to an "enemy state."


1990 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-602
Author(s):  
Ralph Croizier

Until recently, modern Chinese art attracted little scholarly attention, either in China or in the West. Western art historians might occasionally glance at the more traditional kinds of painting in the twentieth century, but their serious publications were on the great periods of Chinese art, Ming or before. The contemporary China-watchers—social scientists and modern period historians—trained their gaze on the harder stuff of politics and economics, ideology and organization. In the United States and the West in general, art seemed to slip through the crack between ACLS- and SSRC-funded research projects. In China, anything on the twentieth century, even art, was too sensitive politically for safe handling. The result was that throughout the Maoist years modern Chinese art could occasionally pique the interest of collectors or dealers outside China or draw carefully calculated praise from critics and publicists within, but it was not a promising area for critical scholarship. Michael Sullivan's pioneering survey, Chinese Art in the Twentieth Century, London and Berkeley, 1959—strong on developments in the later Guomindang period when he was in China, but understandably rather out of touch with the main currents in the People's Republic—remained for almost thirty years the sole monument in a neglected field.


Author(s):  
Adam Herring

This chapter discusses the interpretive challenges that art historians and anthropologists have faced in approaching Inca intellectual and artistic achievements, which do not fit comfortably in Western categories. George Kubler took up the question of Inca art in the mid-twentieth century, creating a space in art history for studying the Incas. This development occurred at a time when archaeologists such as John Rowe worked to place the Incas within the broader context of Andean civilizations, and structuralists like Tom Zuidema were beginning to challenge historical narratives in search of underlying elements of Andean culture. The scholarly interest in Inca art, material culture, and intellect was but one aspect of the Inca focus of that time, as artists found inspiration in Inca ruins and museum galleries in the United States, and other countries began to exhibit Inca artifacts as an art to be approached on its own terms.


Author(s):  
Monty McNair ◽  
Caroline Howard ◽  
Paul Watkins ◽  
Indira Guzman

Survival in the 21st century marketplace often depends on the creativity of organizational employees (Beckett, 1992; Hermann, 1993; Johnson, 1992; Kanter, 1982). Many historians attribute the emergence of the United States (US) as a twentieth century superpower to the creativity of its population (Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). They warn that the United States may be losing its dominance due to declines in the ability to attract and sustain human capital including the creative talent critical for innovation (Florida, 2004; Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). In his Harvard Business Review article, America’s Looming Creativity Crisis, Richard Florida of Carnegie Mellon describes the importance of creativity to the wealth of a society: “Today, the terms of competition revolve around a central axis: a nation’s ability to mobilize, attract and retain human creative talent.“ In other words, nations and their citizens depend on the creativity of their residents to ensure their economic prosperity.


PMLA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hansun Hsiung

“You only have to know one thing: You can learn anything. For free. For everyone. Forever” (Khan Academy). Utopias of learning abound in our contemporary media landscape. Take, for instance, the above motto of Khan Academy (#YouCanLearnAnything), one of the earliest providers of open online education. With lessons in over twenty-four languages on topics from algebra to art history, Khan Academy aspires to reach an unprecedented global audience—not only children from the United States who are stuck in “a corrupt or broken [school] system” but also the “young girl in an African village” and the “fisherman's son in New Guinea” (Khan 4). In this sense, Khan Academy enjoys a paradoxical kinship to the diverse geographies studied in this cluster of essays. By promising the global provision of education, it seeks to conquer geography itself.


2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Salomon

The Future of Art Bibliography (FAB) initiative developed out of various conversations among colleagues in the United States and Europe. Events in the art historical community, including limited funding resources for art libraries and projects internationally, and the cessation of the Getty’s support for the production of the Bibliography of the history of art (BHA) provided the catalyst for the Kress Foundation grant to the Getty Research Institute. A series of international meetings of art librarians, art historians, publishers and information specialists ensued. The goal was to review current practices, take stock of changes, and seriously consider developing more sustainable and collaborative ways of supporting the bibliography of art history in the future.


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