Shi Jie
Ph.D. Candidate, Art History
University of Chicago
Friday, March 11, 4- 6 pm
CWAC 156
The Body Beyond Flesh and Bone: Unpacking the Body Construction in Western Han Princely Tombs
Abstract:
Focusing on the issue of the “deceased subject” in Western Han princely tombs, this paper asks how this subject was constructed by visual and material means and for what purpose. The treatment and placement of the body which occupied the center of the tomb space serves as the starting-point for the inquiry and exploration. Based on archaeological materials, this paper argues that the strategies of showing the buried subject varied in different spaces across the tomb including the inner coffin, the outer coffin, the rear chamber, and the front chamber, and all these different strategies worked together to rebuild an embodied postmortem being.
