Martin Powers
- Professor Emeritus, Department of the History of Art
- Email: mpow@umich.edu
- Phone: 734.764.5402
- Office: 120A Tappan Hall, 855 South University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1357
- Ph.D. 1978, University of Chicago
- Website
Research Interests
Topical/Theoretical
- Chinese art
- Comparative culture
Geographical
- China
Research Projects
Research Description
Martin Powers' research focuses on the role of the arts in the history of human relations in China, with an emphasis on issues of personal agency and social justice. In 1993 his Art and Political Expression in Early China, Yale University Press, received the Levenson Prize for the best book in pre-twentieth century Chinese studies. His Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China, was published by Harvard University Press East Asian Series in 2006 and has been awarded the Levenson Prize for 2008. He has served on numerous national committees, including NEH, ACLS, and the advisory board of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. He has taught in the history departments at Tsinghua, Peking University, and Zhejiang University, and has published articles and essays in multiple venues in Chinese, including an editorial series in the journal of culture and current affairs, Du Shu. In 2009 he was resident at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton writing a book on the role of "China" in the cultural politics of the English Enlightenment. Together with Dr. Katherine Tsiang, he is co-editing the Blackwell Companion to Chinese Art.