Introduction to Islamic Art & Architecture

This course surveys the foundations of Islamic art and architecture in the Middle East and then traces these artistic forms across the Mediterranean and into Central Asia. We will work our way from the seventh through the sixteenth centuries, studying everything from mosques to palaces, from holy texts to vividly depicted tales of love, friendship, and behavior, from shimmering mosaics to stuccoed vaults. Class discussion will be focused on the making, meanings, and social resonances of Islamic art. Together, we will work to define and redefine the term “Islamic Art,” as we consider the following topics: the religious, political, and economic contexts of works of art, the impact of aniconism and iconoclasm on artistic production, the differences between regional and dynastic styles, and the forms of domestic and secular art. In addition, we will focus on the presentation and collection of Islamic art in Western museums, and the influence of Islam on the intellectual and cultural life of the West

Art of Jerusalem: Power and Piety in the Holy Land

This course explores the art and architecture of Jerusalem from the reign of Herod through the Crusades, a period in which the city came under successive Jewish, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin domination. Particular attention will be given to the repeated transformation of the landscape of Jerusalem through the destruction, construction, and modification of important religious and cultural monuments. We will gauge the role of Jerusalem as an object of desire for the dispossessed and for pilgrims of three faiths. In addition, we will explore how the accretion of myth and memory shaped the city’s symbolic identity, and how this imaginary ideal, as expressed in art and architecture, emphasized or denied the physical and political realities of medieval Jerusalem