Research Seminar with Distinguished Art Historian Professor Edward S. Cooke Jr.: Global Objects and the Need for Material Literacy

Professor Edward S. Cooke Jr.(Charles F. Montgomery Professor of American Decorative Arts at Yale University)

Avoiding traditional binaries such as East versus West or fine art versus decorative art and prioritizing transregional flow over stylistic categorization, Cooke will consider new ways of conceptualising and teaching art history.  The principles of this object-driven approach draw on in-depth analysis of the materials, process of realization, function, social lives, and experienced meaning of clay, fibre, wood, and base metals. Transcending nation state and temporal boundaries, this conceptualization emphasizes material literacy and points the way to a fresh interconnected global history of art. Drawing on his ground-breaking book, Global Objects, Cooke will also address the pedagogical means to achieve the necessary material literacy to undertake such object-driven inquiry.