By Vic Cox

The historic network of commerce and culture known as the Silk Road comes to life on campus and in the surrounding communities with a winter quarter series of events and investigations that organizers call the Silk Road Cultural Encounters.

In a free, quarter-long, no-registration, no-credit course, starting on Tuesday, Jan. 9, participants can explore the context of the vast network of ancient trade routes. They ran from Japan and China to India in the south, across Iran, and west into the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

Taught by Bill Powell, chair and associate professor of East Asian languages and cultural studies, “The Silk Road: Sights, Sounds, and Stories” promises to bring to Buchanan Hall 1910 on Tuesday and Thursday evenings a taste of the cultural exchange that reached its height between the second century B.C. and the 14th century A.D.

The course will launch 10 weeks of lectures, performances, films, and other events that culminate in a weeklong campus residency by famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the award-winning collective of international musicians known as the Silk Road Ensemble. Some of these events will be in Santa Barbara venues and many others on campus; most will be free of charge, though not the ensemble’s two performances on March 9 and 10 at the Arlington Theatre. (An 8 p.m. rehearsal on March 7 in HSSB 6020, however, will carry no charge.)

Details are available from UCSB Arts & Lectures at <www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/pdf/ SilkRoadCulturalEncounters.pdf>.

Some of the continuing education courses offered by Santa Barbara City College in connection with the cultural encounters will have modest price tags. Check out their classes at <http://ce.sbcc.edu/silk_road_news.html>.

Though A&L Performing Arts Manager Cathy Oliverson is a driving force behind the encounters, she is quick to credit other events organizers and says that UCSB faculty have become increasingly involved in what has taken more than a year to prepare and mount. The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center is “a major partner,” she says. For example, with the backing of the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, UCSB’s East Asia Center, and the IHC, University of Pennsylvania scholar Victor Mair will discuss the mystery of the mummies of Tarim, one of the most unusual of many interesting lectures.

The University Art Museum also has an extended exhibition of some of the finely crafted Asian musical instruments from the music department’s Henry Eichheim Collection. Opening on Jan. 17, the free “Sounds of the Silk Road” will run until April 8. Professor Dolores Hsu, director of the collection, will offer a personal tour on March 1.