Tracy Miller, associate professor at Vanderbilt University in their College of Arts and Sciences, will be speaking about her research involving art, architecture and religion Tuesday. 

Her lecture titled, “Rethinking Creativity: Generative Design in the Architecture of Medieval Chinese Buddhism,” will start at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

Miller’s research focuses on the “ritual and garden architecture of Imperial China and Japan,” according to the Lectures Program website. She also teaches about Asia’s history of architecture and art history.

“[Miller’s] research focuses on the impact of belief in divinity on the production of art, architecture, and spaces for spiritual encounters,” according to the Lectures Program website.

She is also the author of “The Divine Nature of Power: Chinese Ritual Architecture at the Sacred Site of Jinci.” Miller is working on a book that focuses on design within the Buddhist temple architecture in China during the early medieval and medical times, according to the Lectures Program website.

“Rethinking Creativity: Generative Design in the Architecture of Medieval Chinese Buddhism” is the 2019 Donald R.Benson Memorial Lecture. This lecture is hosted in honor of Benson, a former English professor at Iowa State.

Miller’s lecture is cosponsored by the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by Student Government.