Eiren Shea
Eiren Shea is Associate Professor of Art History at 99精品视频 College, where she offers classes on the arts of pre-modern Asia. Her book, Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange (Routledge, 2020) focuses on textiles and dress of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth century and investigates how this newly-confederated group from the Steppe conquered the most sophisticated societies in existence in less than a century and impacted the arts of China, West Asia, and even Europe.
Her principle fields of research include arts of the Mongol period, the Silk Road, China, Central Asia, and Persia, with a special focus on textiles. She is also interested in East-West cultural exchange more broadly. Her interest in textiles has led her to pursue research in museum and private collections in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and China. To better study the material she also completed the intensive textile analysis course offered by the Centre International d鈥櫭塼ude des Textiles Anciens (CIETA) in Lyon. Shea was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, D.C. from 2014-2016.
Courses Taught
Tutorial: Arts of the Silk Road(s); Tutorial: The Silk Road(s); Introduction to Art History; Arts and Visual Cultures of China; The Mongol Century; Gender and Sexuality in East Asian Art; Collecting the 鈥淥rient鈥; From Edo to Istanbul; Art History Senior Seminar
Education and Degrees
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, East Asian Languages and Civilizations
M.A. University of Pennsylvania, East Asian Languages and Civilizations
B.A. Bard College, French and Art History
Selected Publications
Medieval Textiles across Eurasia, c. 300-1500,听 with听Patricia Blessing (Princeton University), and Elizabeth Dosp臎濒 Williams (Dumbarton Oaks) for the Cambridge University Press Elements Series: Elements in The Global Middle Ages (edited by Geraldine Heng and Susan J. Noakes), 2023.听听
Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange. Series: Routledge Research in Art History, 2020.
- Book review
- Podcast interview for New Books Network:
Articles:
鈥淚ntentional Identities: Liao Women鈥檚 Dress and Cultural and Political Power,鈥 Acta Via Serica, Vol. 6, No. 2 December 2021: 37-60.
鈥淭he Spread of Gold Thread in the Mongol Period,鈥 Journal of Song Yuan Studies, 50, 2021: 381-415.
鈥淐hinese Textiles in Mamluk Tombs: Maritime Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Fourteenth Century,鈥 The Seas and Mobility in Islamic Art. Edited by Radha Dalal, Sean Roberts, and Jochen Sokoly. Yale University Press,听2021
鈥淵uan Court Dress and the Formation of a Global Mongol Aesthetic,鈥 Proceedings of The Mongols and Global History, Florence, Villa I Tatti, 10-11 December 2018. Edited by Anne Dunlop. Harvard University Press, forthcoming.
鈥淭extile as Traveler: The Transmission of Inscribed Robes across Asia in the Twelfth through Fourteenth Centuries.鈥 Arts Asiatiques, Vol. 73, 2018: 97-112.
鈥淧ainted Silks: Form and Production of Women鈥檚 Court Dress in the Mongol Empire.鈥 The Textile Museum Journal, Vol. 45, 2018: 36-55.
鈥溾 Ming Studies [Asian Visual Culture], no. 78, September 2018: 32-56.
Articles for SmartHistory:听
鈥淭he Silk Roads,鈥听
鈥淧ortrait of Chabi (Yuan Dynasty, Mongol Empire)鈥听