Module manager: Dr Eva Frojmovic
Email: E.Frojmovic@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2024/25
This module is not approved as an Elective
You will study the art of some key centres along the routes and networks known as the late antique/medieval ‘Silk Roads’. You will explore cultural connectivity, collaboration, and innovation, ideas about borders, cultural and religious identity, migration, and appropriation. You will study artistic techniques and materials, and how artefacts were created, exchanged, looted, censored, destroyed, and repurposed through time and across geographies. Along the way you will critique key concepts such as “global”, “world-system”, “entanglement”.
The objectives of this module are to provide students with an interdisciplinary perspective on the art and cultures of the Silk Roads and to enable them to think critically about modern definitions of networks, borders and the “global”, as well as disciplinary and theoretical paradigms. As a complex of hubs and connective roadways the Silk Roads helped to facilitate not only artistic exchange but also generated fluid and evolving cultures that encouraged artistic and technological innovation across multiple political, religious, and social formations.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Describe the visual similarities and differences and interrelations that distinguish the art produced by the different cultures and religions that were part of the Silk Roads
2. Engage with and deploy the methodologies and theoretical frameworks that have informed the study of the art of the Silk Roads.
3. Analyse and compare material regionally, inter-regionally, and across disciplinary boundaries from a variety of theoretical perspectives and/or methodological approaches.
4. Undertake independent research and to critically assess both the primary and secondary sources consulted.
Skills learning outcomes
5. The ability to deliver effective and engaging oral and visual presentations to a variety of audiences
6. The ability to write in a clear, concise, focused and structured manner that is supported by relevant evidence.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supervision | 2 | 0.5 | 1 |
| Fieldwork | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Seminar | 10 | 3 | 30 |
| Private study hours | 265 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 35 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 300 | ||
Formative feedback will be offered Regular in-class presentations and on the first essay, and on the presentation (for the second essay) feeding into preparation for the second essay.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Written | 40 |
| Coursework | Written | 60 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 8/29/2024
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team