EVENTS
Persica Centropa Online Research Forum 2026
THE SILK ROADS REDISCOVERED:
LEGEND AND REALITY
Friday 20 March 2026
14:30 - 17:30 JST (6:30 -9:30 CET)
14:30 - 14:40 Welcome & Introduction
Yuka Kadoi (Uni Wien) & Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (ÖAW)
Session 1: Travellers, Scholars and Agents along the Silk Roads
14:40 - 15:00 Daniel C. Waugh (University of Washington)
Skrine at Kashgar: A History in Documents
15:00 - 15:20 Imre Galambos (University of Cambridge / Zhejiang University)
The Rhetorics of Exploration in Stein’s Narratives
15:20 - 15:40 Håkan Wahlquist (Sven Hedin Foundation / Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
Sven Hedin, Albert Herrmann and the (re-)Invention of the Silk Road
Session 2: Silk Road Heritage and Archival Science
15:50 - 16:10 Martina Massullo (Musée du Louvre)
Mapping Memory: Building Digital Access to the Godard Archives at Musée du Louvre
16:10 - 16:30 Anton Matejicka (Uni Wien)
Connecting the World through Offprints: Inventorying the Strzygowski Collection at the University of Vienna’s Art History Library
e-Roundtable
16:30 - 17:30 Japan and Persia: Revisiting "The Silk Road and the Shosoin"
A conversation with Yuka Kadoi (Uni Wien), Yukio Lippit (Harvard University)
& Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (ÖAW)
Zoom registration required
https://univienna.zoom.us/meeting/register/U3noPJliR0KfkuqMd2O3NA
(please submit any questions to: anton.matejicka@univie.ac.at)
As the second research forum, this international online symposium aims at investigating how the knowledge of Eurasian heritage acquired during the late nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries have influenced the way in which many people worldwide came to understand the visual, material and textual legacies of the trans-Eurasian trade network called “Silk Roads”. This forum is held in conjunction with the the four-day programme 'EurAsia-Tokyo Academy (17-20 March 2026), generously sponsored by the Cluster of Excellence 'EurAsia Transformations (Cluster of Excellence "EurAsian Transformations"), in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and the Yokohama Museum of Eurasian Cultures.
Tuesday 17 March: EurAsia - Tobunken Seminar: ‘The Mythmaking of Silk Roads: Reinventing Eurasian Heritage in Japan, 1880-1980'
Further information: Tobunken Seminar: “The Mythmaking of Silk Roads: Reinventing Eurasian Heritage in Japan, 1880-1980” – Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia
Registration: https://forms.gle/UHwpGULSFWwpbops8
Wednesday 18 March: EurAsia Workshop: Religions in Early Modern and Modern Japan
Registration: https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/meeting/register/W5aJPQyMQomCwQt4o78lkw
Thursday 19 March: EurAsia Excursion (Yokohama Museum of Eurasian Cultures)
Registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe0DPkISb-QIKhDiFAx1fckt7X1VUWc4TQ1YgK1yZqHxshwNQ/viewform?usp=header
*****
Persica Centropa Online Research Forum 2024
ENTANGLED OBJECTS OF EURASIA
PERSIAN METALWORK ALONG THE SILK ROAD
Wednesday 16 October 2024
15:00 - 17:00 CET
Matthew Canepa | University of California, Irvine
Scriptive Things and Commensal Warfare: Luxury Vessels across post-Achaemenid Asia
Yukio Lippit | Harvard University
Echoes of Persian Silverware in the Shosoin Treasury
Yuka Kadoi | University of Vienna
Silver in the Mongol Empire: Alternative Nomadic Aesthetics
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller | ÖAW - IMAFO
Chair and moderator
Zoom registration required
(anton.matejicka@univie.ac.at)
In recent years there has been renewed interest in the network of Eurasian trade routes, widely called the Silk Road. Connecting East Asia and North Africa via land and sea routes and spanning some 6,000 kilometres, it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political and religious interactions between the East and West. Although the significance of this century-old connector of commercial and cultural exchanges has been addressed since its scholarly acceptance in the early twentieth century, much needs to be said about the mobility dynamics of materiality and textuality, while overviewing recent discoveries and methodological trends.
Coinciding with the 700th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo, this research forum invites three distinguished art historians with particular expertise in non-European arts who will examine the modes and modalities of portable objects, other than silk textiles, from fresh perspectives. With the focus on metalwork, especially silver, three papers will collectively investigate different phases of material connectivities from the Asia Pacific to Mediterranean regions, from the time of Alexander the Great to the Mongol invasion of Eurasia. Taken together, this and subsequent academic fora are designed to foster a greater understanding of what used to be called ‘Persian art’—cultural artefacts that became predominantly associated with medieval and early-modern Iran and West Central Asia.
This forum is held in conjunction with the workshop, "Entangled Charters of Eurasia", at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (16-18 October 2024).
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/imafo/events/event-details/entangled-charters-of-eurasia
