Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: WHAT IS ISLAMIC ART?

Department: Architecture

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This seminar is a critical examination of key themes and issues in Islamic art. Based on readings that focus on specific examples of artistic and architectural production of major landmarks from the 7th to the 18th centuries our discussions will evolve around such questions as: What is Islamic about Islamic art? How and where did art, religion, and politics intersect? To what extent were art and architecture informed by religious principles, practices, and rituals? Can we speak of a distinctive visual language across the Muslim world? We will also explore the role of myth in the construction of cultural heritage, the development of writing into a major form of art called calligraphy, and questions of patronage and imperial ideology. We will revisit long-held assumptions about the nature or Islamic art as iconoclastic and aniconistic, and about the nature and scope of artistic exchange between the Muslim world and the Latin Christian West, Byzantium, and China. Cross-list: HART 325.