Looking East/Looking West

Examines how objects and images mediate encounters between people and helped define the “Orient” and the “Occident.” Explores the visual and material culture as well as textual accounts produced by and consumed during encounters between European and Asian travelers, diplomats, artists, writers, and tourists since the seventeenth century. Considers the frameworks scholars have used to understand these encounters and how we might deploy those frameworks ourselves. Employs historical thinking to work on our skills of visual and cultural analysis. Questions how these legacies of material and visual exchange have shaped the community within Boston area.