MES 18.04 Arts of Islam

This course is intended to introduce the arts of Islam during a period of dynamic cultural and political change in the Islamic world. It attempts to instill in the student a broad awareness of the diversity and the main achievements of Islamic architecture from the beginnings of Islam to the present day.  It begins with a basic outline of Islamic material culture in its early and 'Classical' periods, from ca. 650 through to the art of the nation-state in the twentieth century. This period saw the initial formation of an Arab empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, a decline in centralized authority, and the rise to political prominence of various North African, Iberian, Iranian, Central Asian, and South Asian dynasties. These political developments are reflected in the increasingly diverse and dynamic nature of Islamic material culture over this period. The topics have been chosen to stress a dialectic between continuity with earlier artistic traditions and the dynamics of transformation and innovation that led to the creation of distinctive regional and transregional visual vocabularies.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:ART; WCult:NW

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.

Department-Specific Course Categories

Middle Eastern Studies