My Career and Vision

USACynthea J. Bogel

Professor and Co-Chair, International MA Program and International
Doctorate in Japanese Humanities, Faculty of Humanities,Kyushu University
Associate Professor, University of Washington; Mary and Cheney Cowles Endowed
Professorship in Asian Art, USA
Visiting Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA
Research Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, USA
Curator of Asian Art and Ethnography, RISD Museum of Art, USA
Ph.D. and M.A., History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, USA

My Research Interests
My research is set in the field of East Asian art, in which I have very broad and diverse interests.
It focuses on the early Buddhist visual culture of Japan (art, icons, temples), especially Buddhist
sculpture of the seventh to tenth century. This interest flowered into a book on temples andicons associated with the ancient Buddhist masters Kūkai and Saichō, and the Chinese Buddhist
ritual goods they imported after their study in Tang China during the early ninth century. The
roots of Buddhism and other religious traditions in Japan and the perception of Buddhist icons
by ancient society are of great interest to me. I moved from a professorship at an American
university to Kyushu University in large part to be closer to the sources of my research. Theseinclude the rich temple and shrine history of Kyushu, its trade with East Asia, and the finescholars here at Kyūdai.
Many months of research were spent in Kyoto and Nara,and as a result, I began to study how religion and its
artistic expression fits into modern life. My recent
research features contemporary art and tourism,
especially “Light Ups” (son et lumiére shows) at temples.
My wider interests are not limited to art and religious
studies: I have worked with museums on their collectionsof the contemporary clothing designer Rei Kawakubo ofComme des Garçons, and published a book on ukiyoe(woodblock prints). In all, I am enthusiastically engaged
by the richness of Japanese traditional and contemporary
culture and craft.

6My career has been a road full of surprises
and hard work. An early turning point was a
study-abroad scholarship to Sydney,
Australia during high school. I had neverbeen on an airplane, let alone out of thecountry. It was 1974 and Australia had
recently ended its all-white immigration
policy. I already had an interest in Asian
culture and languages, much to theamazement of my parents—there was not asingle Asian face in my large high school
nor in my neighborhood. In Sydney, I
observed many Asian cultures anddiscovered that the Japanese language wastaught in my girls’ school. At the age ofsixteen, my eyes were opened to a worldmuch larger than the Pittsburgh where I
grew up. Although I studied geology andpre-engineering courses at college, myfascination with Asia deepened. I startedmy undergraduate degree at Carleton
College but the attraction to Japan wasgreater than to the study of nearby glacialtill. I went to Doshisha University (Kyoto),then transferred to Smith College to study

East Asian Buddhist art history. I took myMA and PhD at Harvard University in theDepartment of the History of Art andArchitecture. From there, it has been a
constant delight to pursue the study ofancient Japan. I was a museum curator, thena professor at the Universities ofWashington and Oregon, for almost twenty
years before moving to Kyushu University.

With my book at the Asia Society bookstore, New York

Message for Students

You will often hear, “follow yourdreams,” but not everyone
realizes how difficult that might be.
You must work hard to do what
you love. The satisfaction will begreat if you succeed.

My research: the bronze triad of Yakushi Nyorai(Medicine Master Buddha), 8th century, Yakushiji,Nara. With permission of Yakushiji

Oita prefecture temple field trip
with Kyushu University
graduate students and colleagues

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