Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: Art History

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: TEN MONUMENTS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD ***** This seminar examines ten key religious and secular buildings of the Islamic world, including some of the most celebrated monuments such as the Taj Mahal, in India, and the Alhambra Palace, in Spain. It covers a wide geographical area that stretches from modern Turkey, Egypt, and Syria, to Iran and India. Each session will alternate lecture and discussion and will focus on one building, exploring it in depth in relation to its aesthetic, cultural, religious, and political contexts. We will examine the formation of a visual vocabulary, its continuities and variations, the complex layers of meanings embedded in these monuments, and will consider questions of patronage, imperial ideology, and cross-cultural encounters and influences. ***** Also offered as ARCH 328/628. ***** Course offered Spring 2005. ***** Instructor(s): Hamadeh.