Islamic Art and Society: 632-2013

This course will explore some of the cultural, political, and social meanings that can be drawn from the history of the art and architecture of Islamic polities and of other pluralistic societies in which Islam has played a part. We will seek to understand the relationship between the religion of Islam and the arts produced in lands where Muslims are the among the creators of visual culture, using works of art and architecture as documents of social and political meaning. The course will begin in Arabia in the 7th century and continue to the Mediterranean, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, and Asia. Finally, we will look at the arts of Islam as a contemporary global phenomenon, including Islamic arts in Europe and America.