An advanced graduate seminar that examines works in the Harvard Art Museums in art historical, literary, and religious context in preparation for publication and future exhibitions. Past seminars have focused on the celebrated thirteenth-century sculpture of Shōtoku Taishi (99.1979.1), the texts, sculptures, and relics, once stored inside the statue, and how the ensemble sheds new light on Kamakura religious history, charismatic monks such as Eison and Ippen, and the meaning behind dedicatory offerings by nuns and laypeople in the medieval period.

An earlier iteration of the course in 2014 focused on art works in the Harvard Art Museums related to the monk Kūkai, such as a Mandala of Mt. Kōya (Kōyasan Mandara 1943.56.24), and the Illustrated Life of the Great Master of Mt. Kōya (Kōya Daishi gyōjō zue 高野大師行状図画 1985.429, 1985.437), two illustrated scrolls (from an original set of seven) containing a total of nineteen texts and paintings. Scrolls relating the legends of the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai (空海) (aka Kōbō-Daishi 弘法大師, 774–835), began to appear in the mid-thirteenth century. Numerous versions and copies survive, but few as well preserved as the Harvard scrolls, which are currently dated to the 16^th century. In addition to learning how to analyze the emaki as a narrative painting, students acquire linguistic skills through translation and interpretation of the scroll texts, while delving into Kūkai’s biography, doctrinal issues specific to medieval Buddhism, and the status of Shingon teachings in the medieval period when the scrolls were produced.