De-nin D Lee

Assistant Professor of Art History and Asian Studies

Fall 2009

  • Introduction to Art History (ARTH 100)
  • Introduction to Art History (ARTH 100L5)
  • Introduction to Art History (ARTH 100L6)
  • The Arts of Japan (ARTH 272)
  • Intermediate Independent Study in Art History (ARTH 291)
Phone (207) 725-3678
Title Assistant Professor
Department ART
2nd Title Assistant Professor
2nd Department ASIAN STUDIES
Work Location 103 Visual Arts Center
E-Mail dlee@bowdoin.edu
Lee

Current Research

Not Appropriate for a Scholar's Study: A Cultural Biography of "The Night Banquet of Han Xizai" book manuscript. for more »

Links

AsiaNetwork »
A consortium of some one hundred and fifty North American colleges striving to strengthen the role of Asian Studies within the framework of liberal arts education to help prepare a new generation of undergraduates for a world in which Asian societies are playing more and more prominent roles. Grants for faculty-student collaborative research in Asia and other opportunities for learning and teaching about Asia available.

Resources in Asian art »

Teaching

I specialize in the history of Chinese art, particularly traditional Chinese ink painting, but at Bowdoin College I offer courses that explore the breadth of art in Asia. I teach several introductory level courses: a broad introduction to art and architecture in Asia, Arts of Japan, and Arts of China. I have also taught courses on Buddhist art in Asia, the archaeology of early China, narrative handscroll paintings in China and Japan, and modern and contemporary art in China. In spring 2008, I taught a collaborative seminar on Chinese painting. Using the collections of Bowdoin and Colby Colleges, students designed an exhibition, “Ink Tales,” which will open in Spring 2009.

Education

Stanford University, Ph.D., 2003
Williams College, M.A., 1995
University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1992

Recent scholarly activity

In a faculty seminar in September 2008, I presented a piece of recent research, “The Brahmin’s Invitation and the Buddha’s Incantation: The Reliquary-Sealing Dhāraṇī Sutra in the Bowdoin College Museum Collection.” This printed sutra was commissioned by King Qian Chu of a regional state called Wu-Yue (in southeastern China) and dates to 975. While the illustration preceding the sutra text has loosely been associated with Qian Chu’s consort, comparisons to two other printings of the same sutra (956 and 1007) suggests that the image really depicts narrative moments described in the sutra. At right, the Brahmin, called Without-Blemish-and-Wonderful-Light, issues an invitation to the Buddha. Near the center, the Brahmin witnesses a miracle as Buddha explains the power of the “Reliquary-Sealing Dhāraṇī Sutra” in the Garden of Abundance and Wealth.

Past Scholarly Activites

for more »

liao "Weaving Palindromes and Reciting Sutras," for the 2004 New York Conference on Asian Studies.

bridgeWith support from Educational Research and Development, Art History/Asian Studies 013, "Stories and Scrolls", a website featuring Spring Festival on the River, a twelfth-century Chinese handscroll painting attributed to the painter Zhang Zeduan.



Curriculum vitae in PDF formPDF »

Image Credits:

top: Zhao Gan, "Along the River at First Snow," detail. National Palace Museum collection. (Source: "Zhao Gan", Wuhan: Hubei meishu, 2000, n.p.)

middle: Baoshan Tomb 2, North mural, detail.

bottom: Zhang Zeduan, attrib., "Spring Festival on the River," detail. Palace Museum, Beijing. (Source: "Zhang Zeduan hui Qingming shanghe tu," Beijing: Rongbaozhai, 1997, cover illustration)