Historiography of Islamic Art and Architecture
Critical review of literature on Islamic art and architecture in the last two centuries. Analyzes the cultural, disciplinary, and theoretical contours of the field and highlights the major figures that have influenced its evolution. Challenges the tacit assumptions and biases of standard studies of Islamic art and architecture and addresses historiographic and critical questions concerning how knowledge of a field is defined, produced, and reproduced. Limited to 12.
Fall 2014 · Historiography of Islamic Architecture
This seminar offers a critical review of scholarship on Islamic architecture through close reading of scholarly texts, museum exhibitions, and architectural projects. It also tackles methodological and historiographical questions about the field's formation, genealogy, recent expansion, and its evolving historical and theoretical contours.
Readings
- No textbook is required for the seminar. Some suggested and background texts are listed here.
- Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art . 2nd ed. Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780300040463.
- Allen, Terry. Five Essays in Islamic Architecture . Solipsist Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780944940006.
- Tabbaa, Yasser. The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival . I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2001. ISBN: 9780295981253.
- Michell, George, ed. Architecture of the Islamic World . William Morrow & Company, 1978. [reprint 1984]
- Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization . University of Chicago Press, 1974. ISBN: 9780226346816.
- Grabar, Oleg. “Islamic Art and Archaeology.” In The Study of the Middle East: Research and Scholarship in the Humanities and the Social Sciences . Edited by L. Binder. John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1977, pp. 229–63. ISBN: 9780471073048.
- Vernoit, Stephen, ed. “Islamic Art and Architecture: An Overview of Scholarship and Collecting, c. 1850–c. 1950.” In Discovering Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Collections 1850–1950 . I. B. Tauris, 2000, pp. 1–61. ISBN: 9781860645341.
- Necipoglu, Gulru. “Ornamentalism and Orientalism.” In The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture . Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995, pp. 61–71.
- Rogers, J. M. From Antiquarianism to Islamic Archaeology . Istituto Italiano di Cultura per la R. A. E., 1974.
- Coste, Pascal. “Préface.” Architecture Arabe ou Monuments du Kaire Mesurés et dessinés de 1818 à 1826 . Firmin Didot Frères, 1837, pp. 2–29.
- Hodgson, Marshall G. “Islam and Image.” History of Religions 3, no. 2 (1964): 220–60.
- Allen, Terry. “Aniconism and Figural Representation in Islam.” In Five Essays on Islamic Art . Solipsist Press, 1986, pp. 17–37. ISBN: 9780944940006.
- Ettinghausen, Richard. “Arabic Epigraphy: Communication or Symbolic Affirmation.” In Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies in Honor of George Miles . Edited by D. K. Kouymjian. American University of Beirut, 1974, pp. 297–317.
- Dodd, Erica C. “The Image of the Word (Notes on the Religious Iconography of Islam).” Berytus 18 (1969): 35–62.
- Edwards, Holly. “Text, Context, Architext: The Qur’an as Architectural Inscription.” In Brocade of the Pen: The Art of Islamic Writing . Edited by Carol G. Fisher. Michigan State University Kresge Art Museum, 1991, pp. 63–75. ISBN: 9781879147102.
- Tabbaa, Yasser. The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival . I. B. Tauris & Company Ltd, 2001, pp. 25–72. ISBN: 9781850433927.
- Irwin, Robert. “Louis Massignon and the Esoteric Interpretation of Islamic Art.” In Discovering Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Collections, 1850–1950 . Edited by S. Vernoit. I. B. Tauris, 2000, pp. 163–70. ISBN: 9781860645341.
- Burckhardt, Titus. “The Foundations of Islamic Art.” In Sacred Art in East and West: Its Principles and Methods . Perennial, 1967, pp. 101–19. ISBN: 9781871534566.
- Coombes, Annie. “Inventing the ‘Postcolonial:’ Hybridity and Constituency in Contemporary Curating.” In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology . Edited by Donald Preziosi. Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 486–97.
- Flood, Finbarr Barry. “From the Prophet to Postmodernism? New World Orders and the end of Islamic Art.” In Making Art History: A Changing Discipline and Its Institutions . Edited by Elizabeth Mansfield. Routledge, 2007, pp. 31–53. ISBN: 9780415372343.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: Permission of instructor Acad Year 2027-2028: G (Fall) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2014
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.