Islam and Material Culture

Catalog description

Muslims invent, design, manipulate, consider, revere, and debate objects of all sorts, from the explicitly religious (prayer beads, prayer rugs, ritual clothing) to the contested (amulets, figural images, devotional offerings) to the seemingly mundane (books, daily dress and ornament, household wares, tools and instruments). As material objects are pervasive and valued elements of all Islamic cultures in diverse ways, this course will consider in what sense object creation, use, encounter, and interpretation can be understood in relation to religion in general and Islam in particular. From studies that consider objects as agents to technical considerations of the physical properties of artifacts to thick descriptions of human attachments to and uses of items of personal or collective significance, this course will look at both a variety of object classifications and a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.