Silk Roads Through Lens of Fashion

My campus commentary is on Dr. Zhang and Dr. Zhu’s talk titled The Old and New: Silk Roads through the lens of fashion, where they combine their fields of study, being Art & Chinese studies and Political Science, respectively, to come together and discuss silk roads and how they have been used and seen throughout the years in honor of the first day of Diversity Week, being Asia Day. The discussion starts off with Dr. Zhang discussing the ancient part of the Silk Road, by first explaining that the term “Silk Road” is not even a historic one; in fact, it was coined in 1877. She goes on to discuss how art from all over the East was diffused throughout Asia, and how varying styles were adapted and shared between different cultures. Dr. Zhu then follows, discussing a more modern look at the Silk Roads, focusing specifically on the Belt and Road Initiative, which connects 150+ countries together into a massive trade network. She also focuses on the positives, and more so, the negatives of the China-Africa fashion exchange and how damaging the trade relationship is to many countries’ local industries in Africa. They then went on to answer any questions people had about the lecture, shared some food with us, and then it was over.

The goal of the lecture was to inform people about some interesting aspects of culture from both the past and present day in different countries throughout Asia for Diversity Week. They are also not working to show a perfect picture of Asia as just a collection of countries with beautiful arts and culture, they also make sure to include some of the negative impacts that countries like China have had on Africa through trade. 

They were successful in sharing information about the old forms of the Silk Road as well as the newer forms, and afterward, I felt as though I had definitely learned a lot of new things about both artistic and trade culture, specifically in China.