Dialogues on the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang: from Cross-Cultural Synergies to Digital Protection

THIS WILL BE A CHINESE-LANGUAGE ONLY LECTURE. NO INTERPRETERS WILL BE AVAILABLE. Please RSVP here.

Join us for a joint lecture from the Vice Director and Head Librarian of the Dunhuang Academy who will give lectures on research scholarship from the Academy. Please see below for short abstracts of their lectures and their biographies.

"从雅典到敦煌——敦煌壁画中的古代东西方文化对话 / From Athens to Dunhuang: On the Images Reflecting the Cultural Dialogues between the Ancient East and the West in Dunhuang Murals"

个人简介：张元林，1989年毕亚于上海复旦大学历史系文物与博物馆学专业，2009年毕业于兰州大学历史文化学院历史文献学专业，获历史学博士学位。现任敦煌研究院副院长，兼任兰州大学翠英讲教授，博士研究生导师、中国敦煌吐鲁番学会副会长；2014—2015年在哈佛•燕京学社协同研究学者，现为加州大学伯克利分校东亚图书馆访问学者。

主要从事佛教图像学和丝绸之路文化比较研究。先后独立出版《敦煌石窟艺术·254、260窟》（中文版1996年出版；日文版2002年出版）、《中国壁画分类全集·敦煌壁画·西魏卷》（2002）、《北朝—隋时期敦煌法华图像研究》（2017）3部；合著《敦煌石窟美术史·十六国北朝卷》、《敦煌文化探微》、《甘肃石窟志》、《敦煌与隋唐城市文明》4部；译著《弥勒净土论》1部；发表《粟特人与莫高窟第 285 窟的开凿》、《跨越洲际的旅程——敦煌壁画中日神、月神和风神图像上的希腊艺术元素》、《来自西亚的“神圣性”的象征——莫高窟第 249 窟凸形雉堞的图像探源》等学术论文60多篇。

About the Speaker

Dr. Zhang Yuanlin ( 张元林) has a B.A. in history from Fudan University, Shanghai in 1989 and a Ph.D. in History from Lanzhou University in 2009. He is the deputy director of the Dunhuang Research Academy, the distinguished Professor of Lanzhou University and Vice President of Chinese Association of Dunhuang & Turfan Studies. And he is the coordinating Research fellow of Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2014-2015, and he now is a three-monthed visiting scholar of the East Asian Library, UCB.  His research field is on comparative studies on Buddhist Iconography and on the Silk Road cultures. His contributions include three monographs such as Volume of Cave 254 and Cave 260 , Dunhuang Grottoes Art (in Chinese, 1996 ; in Japanese, 2002)，Volume of the Western Wei of Dunhuang Murals of the Complete Collection of Chinese Mural Classification (2002) and Research on the Lotus Sutra Icons in Dunhuang Caves in the Period of the Northern Dynasties and in Sui Dynasty (2017) and more than 60 pi eces of articles such as The Sogdians and the Excavation of Cave 285 of the Mogao Grottoes (2006)；An Intercontinental Journey -Greek Art Elements in the Images of Sun God, Moon God and Wind God in Dunhuang Murals (2017) and A Symbol of Divinity from Western Asia–On the Origin of the Convex Crenellation Image in  Cave
249,Mogao Grottoes. (2023), etc.

"敦煌莫高窟文化遗产的数字化保护——数字敦煌 / Digital Protection of the Cultural Heritage of the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang -- Digital Dunhuang"

本报告分五个部分探讨敦煌莫高窟文化遗产的数字化保护；(1)丝绸之路上的敦煌莫高窟；(2)数字敦煌项目概述；(3)文化遗产数字化保护技术应用；(4)流失海外敦煌文物数字化复原；(5)数字敦煌未来发展。

About the Speaker
 

A native of Dunhuang, Gansu, Xia Shengping (夏生平) joined the Dunhuang Academy in August 1987. He has successively studied in the School of Library and Information Science of Wuhan University and the School of Library and Information Science of University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Now he serves as a deputy director and research librarian with the Thanatology Information Center of the Dunhuang Academy. Currently, he is a member of the Library Association of Gansu Province, a member of Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA), a member of the Chinese Association of Dunhuang and Turfan Studies, a member of Chinese Information Society of Social Sciences, a deputy director of the Culture and Museum Library professional group of the Branch of Special Libraries of the Library Society of China, and a deputy director of the Heritage Digitization Board of the ICOMOS China.

Xia is mainly engaged in the studies of Tunhuangology history, bibliography, cultural heritage digitization, information resource organization and management, and document resource sharing platform construction. He has mainly participated in and undertaken three sub-programs of the National Sci-Tech Support Plan; two projects supported by the National Social Science Fund; three projects supported by the National Cultural Heritage Administration and two projects supported by China Dunhuang Grottoes Conservation Research Foundation. He has published several papers and two monographs. Currently, he is mainly devoted to the construction of a Tunhuangology Information Resource Sharing Platform, and the research tasks of the “Digital Dunhuang” project and the “Digitization Return” project of cultural relics of the Dunhuang Sutra Cave lost overseas. His works “Research Review on Donors of Dunhuang Grottoes” and “Research Review on the Sutra Paintings of Dunhuang Grottoes” won a third prize respectively in the third and sixth awarding events of library and information academic achievements in Gansu Province. The case report of “Digitization Protection and Records of Cultural Heritage - Digital Dunhuang” submitted by him won the “Award for the Best Practice” in the “fifth International Forum on Digitization and Protection of Cultural Relics” organized by the CIPA (in 2018).on and Protection of Cultural Relics” organized by the CIPA (in 2018).