Course Connections Across Campus: Exploring Buddhism and Asian cultures through Art

The museum’s collection is a vital resource for teaching and learning across disciplines at Lehigh University. Faculty from art history to engineering, psychology to environmental studies regularly integrate original works of art into their courses to spark critical thinking, inspire creativity, and deepen engagement with course content. Through class visits, custom-designed experiences, and object-based inquiry, we collaborate with instructors to create meaningful connections between the visual arts and diverse academic fields.

Since 2019, Annabella Pitkin, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies and East Asian Religions in the Department of Religion, Culture, and Society, has partnered with LUAG to integrate the museum’s collections into her teaching. LUAG staff work closely with Professor Pitkin to select and present Himalayan artworks for her students to study firsthand—often unframed and up close—providing a rare and powerful opportunity for direct engagement with living Buddhist practices, ritual, and material culture.  Through guided class visits and hands-on artmaking sessions with teaching artist Susan Morelock, students explore foundational Buddhist concepts, symbols, and visual traditions while making connections to contemporary social, environmental, and cultural issues.

These experiences invite students to consider modes of relating—to the world, to each other, and to ourselves—through the lenses of interdependence and kinship; modes of meaning-making, including memory, awareness, and imagination; and modes of living, such as community, ritual, and everyday practice. Course content is deeply interdisciplinary, connecting Buddhist philosophy and practice with topics ranging from transnational connections and cultural change to technology, ecology, environmental justice, food systems, and Indigenous perspectives. Students gain insight into the complex ways culture, art, and religious community impact topics like climate change, land use, activism, and the flourishing of human and non-human ecosystems.

In 2023, LUAG was proud to be the inaugural venue for Gateway to Himalayan Art, a major national traveling exhibition organized by the Rubin Museum of Art, NYC that offers a sweeping introduction to art of the Himalayan region. Building on this collaboration, LUAG was invited to host select objects on rotating loan from the Rubin’s renowned collection through 2026. With guidance from Professor Pitkin, these works are now installed alongside LUAG’s permanent collection in a specially redesigned space within the lower gallery to create a dynamic, evolving display that continues to support teaching, and is open to all visitors interested in learning more about Himalayan art and its cultural contexts.

This featured collection of Himalayan art offers rich possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement across fields such as anthropology, international relations, materials science, population health, neuroscience, and more. Together with LUAG curators, Professor Pitkin is available to consult with instructors from any discipline to help plan course modules, design class activities, or co-develop assignments that integrate visual and cultural analysis into a wide range of learning goals. Fore more information please email Stacie Brennan, LUAG Curator of Education at sen403@lehigh.edu or Annabella Pitkin, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies and East Asian Religions in the Department of Religion, Culture, and Society at anp515@lehigh.edu.