This undergraduate seminar examines the history, culture, and practice of the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu) and its reception in the United States. What began as a ritualized preparation of tea, by the medieval period had developed into a wide-ranging cultural practice the study of which opens onto issues of Japanese aesthetics, political history, and philosophy. Common perceptions of chanoyu today, however, are often filtered through the lens of its first systematic presentation in the United States, Okakura Tenshin’s Book of Tea (1906). With this in mind, the course takes advantage of the rich resources in the Boston area that pertain directly to this early phase of “teaism” in America, while exploring later twentieth-century and contemporary examples of art and architecture related to tea.

This is not a typical  course: in addition to the seminar meetings, we will have a weekly practicum in Harvard's authentic Japanese tea ceremony room. Students will learn how to prepare and drink tea, keep a tea diary, and will have the opportunity to design their own virtual tea room as a final project. Training in the practice of chanoyu involves not only the preparation of tea, but it is a physical and mental discipline incorporating movement, gesture, and aesthetic judgement. The goal of this somatic learning is to link forms of practice to critical study and issues in the assigned theoretical and historical readings, to challenge ingrained bodily and mental habits, and to reap the intellectual rewards of the collaborative environment of the tea room.