Zsuzsanna
Gulácsi, PhD
Associate Professor
Program Coordinator of Asian Studies
Riles 116
(928) 523-0070
Zsuzsanna.Gulacsi@nau.edu
Background
Dr. Gulacsi is a historian of Asian religious art. In pursuit of a postgraduate
education in Central Eurasian Studies and Art History, she came to the United
States in 1990 from her native Hungary to study these subjects at Indiana University,
Bloomington. She received a double major Ph.D. degree in 1998. After teaching
the history of Central Asian Art at Sophia University
in Tokyo, Japan, between 1999-2003, she joined the faculty of the Department
of Humanities, Arts, and Religion at
NAU in 2003.
Teaching
Dr. Gulacsi has a broad educational background that prepared her
to teach a wide spectrum of undergraduate and graduate courses
on the history and function of arts across the Asian continent.
Her courses art NAU contribute to the curricula of the Art History,
the Religious
Studies, and
the Asian
Studies
programs. From West and Central Asia, her teaching covers Early
and Eastern Christian (Syriac and Armenian) art as well as Islamic
art with special attention to the medium of the illuminated book.
From South, Central, and East Asia, her classes focus on late ancient
and mediaeval Buddhist art. When possible, her courses discuss
the often-neglected Central and Northern parts of the Asian continent,
including the tribal arts of Siberia (from where her own native
Hungarian heritage ultimately derives), the arts of the ancient
Nomadic Steppe Empires, as well as the more recent arts of the
Mongol and Tibetan Empires. Her courses include:
- Arts of the Asian Continent (NAU)
- Arts of East Asia
- Art History I
- Survey of Western Art I
- Masterpieces of World Art
- Writing about Art (NAU)
- Arts of Japan (NAU)
- Arts of China (NAU)
- Religious Arts of the Asian Continent (NAU)
- Buddhist Art: Visual Language and Religious Context (NAU
- Islamic Art: Religious and Secular Arts of Islamic Asia (NAU)
- Didactic Arts in Asian Religions (NAU)
- Arts of the Book in Asia: E.Christ., Manich., Buddh., & Islamic (NAU)
- Arts of China and Its Northern Neighbors
- Along the Ancient Silk Routes
- Manichaean Art in Medieval Central Asia
Research
Dr. Gulacsi is a specialist of late ancient and medieval arts of the "Silk
Road," a network of trade routs that connected West, South, and East Asia.
Her research focuses on the contextualized study of the artistic heritage of
Silk Road religions, including Buddhism, East Syriac/"Nestorian" Christianity,
and Manichaeism, with special attention to the latter, a now extinct missionary
world religion that existed across the Asian continent between the mid 3rd and
the early 17th centuries. Dr. Gulacsi is the author of 2 books and numerous articles
on the subject, including:
- “A Manichaean Portrait of the Buddha Jesus (Yishu Fo Zheng): Identifying a 13th-century Chinese Painting from the Collection of Seiun-ji Zen Temple, near Kofu, Japan.” Artibus Asiae 69/1 (2009): forthcoming.
- Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art: A Codicological Study of Iranian and Turkic Illuminated Book Fragments from 8th – 11th cc. East Central Asia. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 57 (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
- “Dating the ‘Persian’ and Chinese Style Remains of Uygur Manichaean Art: A New Radiocarbon Date and its Implication to Central Asian Art History.” Arts Asiatiques, 58 (2003): 5-33.
- Manichaean Art in Berlin Collections: A Comprehensive Catalogue. Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum: Series Archaeologica et Iconographica 1 (Turhout: Brepols, 2001).
Her current research projects include:
- “A Non-Christian Jesus: Late-Ancient Roots of Manichaean Jesus Iconography” Society ofBiblical Literature (Religion in Late Antiquity), Annual Meeting, Boston, 2008 (abstract).
- “Dura from the East: Considering Mesopotamian Jewish Biblical Narrative in Light of 3rd-century Manichaean and Buddhist Analogies” Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion (Bible and Visual Arts), Annual Meeting, San Diego, 2007 (abstract).
- Mani’s Picture-Book: Searching for a Late Antique Mesopotamian Pictorial Roll & its Mediaeval Transformation in Central and East Asian Art. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming (book prospectus).
Awards
Ryskamp
Research Fellow
National
Humanities Center Fellow
American Philosophical
Society, Franklin Research Grant
Northern Arizona University (3 Intramural Grants)
Japanese Cultural Ministry, "Young Scholar" Fellow (Japan)
Outstanding Teacher and Scholar, Indiana University