Islamic Art

Catalog description

Taught by PSR. This is a three credit hour lecture course on Islamic visual culture. The geographic span of the class will be wide-from the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East to North Africa and Western Europe. We will study some of the quintessential architectural monuments associated with medieval Islam. We will consider city planning, palatial structures and gardens but will mostly concentrate on religious architecture. We will further focus on the importance of calligraphy in Quran manuscripts and architectural inscriptions, on figural representations in secular buildings and books, as well as on images in ceramics and metalwork. An additional emphasis will be placed on the interactions between various cultures and especially on the ways Islamic visual idioms were utilized by the medieval Christians and vice versa. The grades will be based on: 1) your active involvement in class discussion, 2) one oral presentation, 3) weekly reflection papers, 4) a book review and 5) a final 10 to 15 page paper.