The Local as Global: Reflections on Teaching Korean Art

My course, “Ceramics of Korea,” is an upper-level undergraduate art history course which typically enrolls between 20-25 undergraduate and 4-5 graduate students. Prior to revising the syllabus, the class consisted mostly of lectures focusing on the styles and decorative motifs of Korean ceramics from the prehistoric age to modern times. I completely revised the syllabus in a teaching project directed by the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Kansas. To expand cultural understanding and create global awareness, the new syllabus looks at Korean ceramics from a broader cultural perspective, including China and Japan as well as the Middle East and Europe. Focusing on three major types of ceramics, i.e., ceramics related to Japanese tea practice, celadon and blue-and-white ceramics, students learn how intercultural relations nurtured the development and appreciation of new styles and motifs. Via archaeological and art-historical readings about ceramics production, firing methods and styles as well as readings in East Asian history, literature and anthropology, students realize that there were cultural waves across East Asia, which expanded to the Middle East and Europe and followed similar trends. However, there were also local developments, such as wabi aesthetics in Japan, which resulted in the making of a particular type of ceramics for tea practice in Korea. Thus, in this class students recognize that the art of a given culture is nurtured by the repertoire of artistic expression that developed simultaneously in neighboring countries while each local culture continued to develop its own style.