Aoyama Gakuin University (Tokyo, Japan), BA, 1998; MA, 2001
Harvard University, AM, 2004; PhD, 2009
Akiko Walley received her PhD from Harvard University in 2009, specializing in Japanese and East Asian Buddhist art of the sixth to eighth century. Walley’s current research centers on three main topics: (1) the relationship between relic worship and the emerging practice of depositing caches inside Buddhist statues; (2) early modern (1603-1868) calligraphy collecting and the fragmentation and circulation of Buddhist scriptures; and (3) strategies for decolonizing the narrative of Japanese art history. She is the author of Constructing the Dharma King: The Hōryūji Shaka Triad and the Birth of the Prince Shōtoku Cult (Japanese Visual Culture Series, vol. 15; Leiden: Brill, 2015) and the virtual exhibition and database, Tekagami & Kyōgire (https://glam.uoregon.edu/s/tekagami-kyogire/page/welcome), featuring the two significant collections of calligraphic fragments at the University of Oregon. Her work has also appeared in journals including Ars Orientalis, Archives of Asian Art, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Artibus Asiae, and Religions.
Presently, Walley is working on three book-length projects around the three research foci: The Power of Concealment: Relics and Hidden Caches in Early Japanese Buddhism that explores the devotional power of concealment in sixth- to eighth-century Japanese Buddhism from relic worship to early practices of depositing caches inside objects of devotion; Reality Effect: Tekagami Vogue and the “True Brush” in the Edo-Period Collecting of Sūtra Fragments, which analyzes how the practices of Edo-period calligraphy collecting gave rise to new perceptions of ancient historical and cultural leaders; and a new open-access Japanese art history textbook that equally represents the arts of the Ainu people and the residents of the Ryūkyū Kingdom/Okinawa prefecture alongside those of the Yamato people, who are the ethnic majority of the Japanese archipelago. Walley has received multiple funding supports for her projects, including the Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow Grant and the Getty Scholarship.
Walley teaches a wide range of courses on Japanese art from prehistoric to contemporary times. Recent upper-division themed courses she has offered include: Art of Tea in Japan; 6th-8th Century East Asian Buddhist Networks; Nirvana; Japanese Art and Christianity; Eccentrics in Japanese Art; Global Japan; War and Japanese Art; Contemporary Japanese Prints; and History of Manga. She has advised graduate students interested in an array of topics from Heian-period Buddhist sculpture, early modern woodblock prints and painting, underground Christian artifacts, to Araki Nobuyoshi’s photography.
Selected Courses Taught
ARH 209 History of Japanese Art
ARH 397 Japanese Buddhist Art
ARH 350 History of Manga
ARH 399 War and Japanese Art
ARH 399 Christianity and Japanese Art
ARH407 Divine Art (co-taught with Prof. Maile Hutterer)
ARH 4/510 Global Japan
ARH 4/510 Nirvana
ARH 4/510 East Asian Buddhist Calligraphy and Inscription
