Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: KINGS, HEROES, AND LOVERS: ILLUSTRATED BOOKS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Department: Art History

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine the manuscript traditions of three great Muslim empires during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the Safavids, the Mughals, and the Ottomans. Emphasis will be placed on the less-well known Ottoman case to develop a critical approach to the manuscripts and the scholarship. The painting traditions of these three empires and individual manuscripts will be examined from the points of view of production, patronage, aesthetics, and reception. Concepts of artistic transmission, (re)writing history, and self-fashioning will be examined via specific examples.