Art and architecture are expressions of the material culture of the Middle East and Islamic world. They speak volumes about the policies of caliphs (or other local rulers), economics, and laws in Islamic societies historically and today. Those who study them show how. Check out the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture lecture series for the 2019-2020 academic year!
A Forum for Islamic Art & Architecture
FALL
September 26, 2019
“Representing Power at the Court of Ottoman Tunisia in the 19th Century”
Ridha Moumni
Art Historian, Curator; Harvard CMES Fellow. Co-sponsored with The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.
October 17, 2019
“Qusayr ‘Amra: The Pandora’s Box of Early Islamic Aesthetics”
Nadia Ali
Faculty Fellow, Silsila: Center for Material Histories, New York University
October 31, 2019
“Towards an Understanding of Early Islamic Architectural Ornament: Ancient Near Eastern Influences at Samarra”
Ann Shafer
Independent scholar; Adjunct Assistant Professor, SUNY-FIT; Harvard AKPIA Associate
November 21, 2019
“Re-thinking ‘National Style’: Actors, Tendencies and References”
Müjde Dila Gümüş
Researcher, Istanbul University; Harvard AKPIA Associate
SPRING
March 5, 2020
“Between Khurasan, Iraq, Egypt and al-Andalus: New Thoughts on the Processes of Commissioning Caliphal Works Under the Early Islamic Caliphates”
Jochen Sokoly
Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar
SUNIL KUMAR: SPECIAL GUEST LECTURES FOR THE AKPIA SERIES
Professor, History of Medieval India, History Department Head, Delhi University
Co-sponsors, Standing Committee on Medieval Studies; Inner Asian and Altaic Studies
Lecture 1: March 31, 2020
“The Creation and Representation of Order: Ghiyas al-Din Tughluq’s Tughluqabad”
Lecture 2: April 2, 2020
“Reconstituting the Archive of Hazrat-i Dehli: The Sultans, the Sufis and the Riverine Plain of Delhi”
These two lectures are held at 6:00pm, in the Sackler Basement Auditorium
April 9, 2020
“Habsburg Alba Amicorum in Ottoman Constantinople”
Robyn Radway
Assistant Professor of History, Central European University
Lectures are open to the public and held Thursdays, 6:00-7:30pm, in the Arthur M. Sackler Building, Room 422, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. The two Special Guest Lectures will be held in the Sackler Basement Auditorium.
For further information, call 617-495-2355 or email agakhan@fas.harvard.edu.