Call for Papers
Architecture and Endurance (September 30 - October 2, 2021). Submission deadline January 31, 2021
METU Department of Architecture, Ankara
In recent years, there is a tendency in architectural historiography to go deep into the specific histories of single buildings and sites; to produce biographies of buildings and sites in longue durée,…
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The Environment and Ecology in Islamic Art and Culture, November 2021. Submission deadline February 20, 2021.
VCU, Qatar
How might the study of the visual, rooted in disciplines such as art history, anthropology, and archaeology of the larger Islamic world, engage with the concerns of this Symposium on practical, philosophical,…
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Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World invites submissions for the forthcoming volume 39, to be published in 2022
Cambridge, MA
Muqarnas is a scholarly journal that publishes articles on art, architectural history, and archaeology, as well as all aspects of Islamic visual and material cultures, historical and contemporary.…
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Renata Holod wins the Middle East Studies Association's 2020 Mentoring Award
Congratulations Professor Holod!
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Under the Skin: Feminist Art and Art Histories from the Middle East and North Africa Today, eds. Ceren Özpınar and Mary Kelly
Under the Skin explores how art responds to and shapes cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality, ethnicity/race, religion, tradition, modernity and contemporaneity, and local and global politics. We hope that you like how it strives to strike a balance by connecting studies and scholars to stimulate different feminist and decolonial perspectives and debates on art and visual culture from the Middle East and North Africa.
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The 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations in Istanbul: Festivity and Representation in the Early Eighteenth Century, by Sinem Erdoğan İşkorkutan
The 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations in Istanbul offers the first holistic examination of an Ottoman public festival through an in-depth inquiry into different components of the 1720 event. Through a critical and combined analysis of the hitherto unknown archival sources along with the textual and pictorial narratives on the topic, the book vividly illustrates the festival’s organizational details and preparations, its complex rites (related to consumption, exchange, competition), and its representation in courtcommissioned illustrated festival books (sūrnāmes).To analyze all these phases in a holistic manner, the book employs an interdisciplinary approach by using the methodological tools of history, art history, and performance studies and thus, provides a new methodological and conceptual framework for the study of Ottoman celebrations.
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Online Exhibition and Resources on the Great Mosque of Djenne, the Djingareyber Mosque in Timbuktu, the Great Mosque of Gede, Remains of Islamic architecture in Judani Island, Tanzania, and other sites of interest
Part of the online exhibition, “Black Monuments Matter,” organized by The Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations and the Zamani Project at the University of Cape Town.
Black Monuments Matter recognises and highlights African contributions to world history by exhibiting World Heritage Monuments and architectural treasures from Sub-Saharan Africa.
In doing so, this exhibition sweeps away ideas based on racist theories and hopes to contribute to both awareness of African identity and pride of African Heritage. The exhibition is inspired by the “Black History Month” in the United Kingdom.
Black monuments matter and Black cultures matter. Sites and monuments are physical representations of histories, heritage, and developments in society. This exhibition aims to display the diversity and richness of African cultures as part of world history through the study of African Monuments; bringing awareness and pride of African roots and contributions to other cultures.
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Mekka and Medina Maps and Illustrations: from 15th to 20th Century, by Mehmet Tütüncü
Drawings and images of Islam’s holiest places, the Kaaba and the city of Mecca, alongside Medina with the Mosque of the Prophet, have been very popular over the centuries. These images have been used for various purposes and had also been executed for these purposes (drawn, sketched, coloured, incised, stencilled, cut, knitted, printed or even built) on or using a variety of materials, such as stone, ceramics, paper, textiles, wood, marble/tiles (in the form of frescoes), etc. This book is a publication and description mostly for the first time of nine key objects representing mecca and Medina. The book describes and analyses the contents from these images and its relevance to the buildings, history and topography of the holy cities of Islam.
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Muthanna/Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy. History, Theory and Aesthetics by Esra Akın-Kıvanç
Muthanna, also known as mirror writing, is a compelling style of Islamic calligraphy composed of a source text and its mirror image placed symmetrically on a horizontal or vertical axis. This style elaborates on various scripts such as Kufic, naskh, and muhaqqaq through compositional arrangements, including doubling, superimposing, and stacking. Muthanna is found in diverse media, ranging from architecture, textiles, and tiles to paper, metalwork, and woodwork. Yet despite its centuries-old history and popularity in countries from Iran to Spain, scholarship on the form has remained limited and flawed. Muthanna / Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy provides a comprehensive study of the text and its forms, beginning with an explanation of the visual principles and techniques used in its creation. Author Esra Akın-Kıvanç explores muthanna's relationship to similar forms of writing in Judaic and Christian contexts, as well as the specifically Islamic contexts within which symmetrically mirrored compositions reached full fruition, were assigned new meanings, and transformed into more complex visual forms. Throughout, Akın-Kıvanç imaginatively plays on the implicit relationship between subject and object in muthanna by examining the point of view of the artist, the viewer, and the work of art. In doing so, this study elaborates on the vital links between outward form and inner meaning in Islamic calligraphy.
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From Granada to Berlin: the Alhambra Cupola, by Anna McSweeney
The new book by Dr Anna McSweeney – From Granada to Berlin: the Alhambra Cupola (Verlag Kettler, 2020) – tells the long history of the Alhambra palace through the prism of one of its most extraordinary survivors: the Alhambra cupola, a carved and painted 14th century ceiling which is now in the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin.
Through a close examination of the cupola, it traces the long history of the Alhambra from medieval Granada to contemporary Berlin. It examines the methodology of object biography in relation to architectural fragments, while the loss of the cupola from Granada, its acquisition by the museum in Berlin and the complex reasons behind this loss remain central. Through a focused, chronological study with extensive new research on the object and the changing societies through which it moved, including many previously unpublished images, this book explores the material and cultural history of the cupola and offers a new perspective on the legacy of Islamic art in Europe and its continuing relevance today.
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