There are two main areas of instruction, as follows:
1. The history and practice of calligraphy;
2. The role of the written character and of traditional ideographic studies in the development of Chinese thought systems.
The former provides indispensable core knowledge of the culture of calligraphy, while the latter discusses the way that the ideographic word reflects China’s articulation of the principles of Nature.
Part 1: The Calligraphy Studies programme will include: knowledge and understanding of Chinese characters; study of the structural form of written characters; analysis of different calligraphic styles; learning the correct writing posture; practicing the way to move the body during the act of writing. Additional topics will include understanding the tools of calligraphy, and foundational studies in the history and connoisseurship of calligraphy.
Through this step-by-step process of study and hands-on training, students will acquire a more direct and personalized understanding of the culture of Chinese calligraphy.
Part 2: using the Shuowen jiezi (An Explication of Written Characters, a dictionary complied at the end of the 1st century) as the core text, this series of lectures will analyze the spiritual thread that runs throughout the tradition of ideographic (character word) studies in Chinese culture.
