Expertise: Japanese art history all periods and pre-modern architectural history; Buddhist visual culture of East and South Asia
My recent research on Japanese Buddhist visual culture examines the ancient reception of a Buddhist icon or image in the temple or ritual setting. It considers Buddhist visual culture as ritual praxis. My work also asks critical questions about its historiography (i.e., written studies on the work and changing interpretations to date). A forthcoming book (A Single Glance: Vision and Icon in Early Mikkyô Contexts ) explores Mikkyô (Esoteric Shingon and Tendai) Buddhist temples and icons during the ninth century in Japan and the broader epistemological impact of a new Esoteric “visuality” on representational modes and other forms of “vision.” A new project, funded by grants from the J. Paul Getty Foundation and the UW Royalty Research Fund, studies Buddhist icons and ritual goods imported from Tang China to Japan in 804. I am also working on a book on Edo period  (1603-1868)  ukiyoe (woodblock prints) and a study of the earliest displays of Buddhist icons in Japanese museums and private settings during the Meiji period (1868-1912). My research takes me to Japan and Korea often, and when possible I meet with graduate students in Japan for study.
I teach courses on all periods and forms of Japanese art (painting, prints, Buddhist art, gardens, and thematic courses) and on pre-modern architecture. I prefer a cross-disciplinary approach. My classes often integrate objects on display at the Seattle (Asian) Art Museum or collections at the UW Henry Art Gallery, an approach that reflects my professional expertise in the museum world, including a stint as Asian Art curator at the RISD Museum of Art and guest-curated exhibitions. It also ties into a deep interest in the ways that Asian art and religious objects are presented in the museum and classroom. Students will receive a thorough grounding in the visual history of Japanese art and architecture and exposure to critical questions about the field. Graduate students take funded annual field trips in the US or to Asia with faculty to view important museum exhibitions and study the sites first hand; they may also be selected for year-long Blakemore Foundation curatorial internships in Japanese art, Chinese art, or Asian art education at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, or participate in planning an exhibition with me.

Recent Seminars and Upper Division Courses
The Gendered Eye: Vision and Difference in Japanese Arts and Cultures
Rituals and Representation in Esoteric (Tantric) Buddhism of East Asia
Representations of Edô Period (1603-1868) Japan in Ukiyoe Prints: Fact or Fiction?
Japanese Classical Handscroll Painting
Japanese Buddhist Art and Architecture
Contemporary and Early Modern Japanese Textiles in Regional Collections

Selected Publications

“Situating Moving Objects: A Sino-Japanese Catalogue of Imported Items, 800 CE to the Present,” in Lost Worlds: Situating Asian “Art Objects” in Ritual, Performance, and the Everyday, eds. Pitalka and Mrazek (University of Hawaii Press) [forthcoming]

“Esoteric Art, East Asia,” in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. (New York, Detroit, others: Macmillan Reference USA and Thomson Gale), 252-257

“Canonizing Kannon: The Ninth-Century Esoteric Buddhist Altar at Kanshinji,” Art Bulletin (March 2002): 30-64

Nuno: Japanese Textiles for the Body (University of Oregon, Museum of Art, 1995)