Past Courses
| Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 40. Monuments of Islamic Architecture Gülru Necipoğlu and David J. Roxburgh An introduction to ten iconic monuments of the Islamic world from the beginning of Islam to the early modern period. The course introduces various types of building-mosques, palaces, multifunctional complexes-and city types and the factors that shaped them, artistic, patronal, socio-political, religio-cultural, and economic. Each case study is divided into two lectures. The first presents the monument or city by “walking” through it. The second is devoted to themes elicited from the example, developed in light of comparative monuments, sites, and/or written sources, and to problems of patronage, production, audience and meaning as they pertain to architectural history. Lit & Art B-35. The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent: Art, Architecture, and Ceremonial at the Ottoman Court Gülru Necipoğlu The "Golden Age" of Ottoman-Islamic visual culture in the 16th century, considered within its ceremonial and historical contexts, with focus on architecture, miniature painting, and the decorative arts. The urban transformation of Byzantine Constantinople into Ottoman Istanbul, the formation of an imperial architectural style, and artistic contacts with contemporary European and Islamic courts are stressed. Art and architecture of Safavid Iran and Mughal India are considered as a comparative backdrop. Themes include the role of centralized court ateliers in propagating canons of taste, the emphasis on decorative arts in a culture that rejected monumental sculpture and painting, and representations of the East by European artists in the Orientalist mode. |
| HAA 12. Early Islamic Art and Architecture (650-1250) David J. Roxburgh An introductory survey of the architecture, ceramics, metalwork, and arts of the book from Spain to India and Central Asia, during the period between the rise of Islam and the Mongol conquests. Focusing on the patronage of ruling elites in principal urban centers, the architecture and material culture of the Islamic world will be approached through a variety of contexts: cultural, political, socio-economic, and aesthetic. Note: This survey complements Fine Arts 12d: Introduction to Later Islamic Art and Architecture (1250-1800). |
| HAA 12d. Introduction to Later Islamic Art and Architecture (1250-1800) Gülru Necipoğlu An introductory survey of the masterpieces of later Islamic art and architecture from the Mongol conquests in the early thirteenth century to the modern era. Architectural monuments, the applied arts, and the arts of the book from Spain to the borders of China will be treated in their cultural, political, socio-economic, and aesthetic contexts. The visual culture of the Islamic world will be analyzed within a dynastic perspective, highlighting the goals of patrons belonging to ruling elites. Note: This survey complements Fine Arts 12d: Early Islamic Art and Architecture (650-1250). |
| HAA 12x. Introduction to Islamic Architecture (650-1650) Gülru Necipoğlu An introduction to the major monuments of medieval and early modern architecture in the Islamic world stretching from Spain in the west to the borders of China in the east. Architectural monuments will be examined in their cultural, political, socio-economic, and aesthetic contexts. A highly selective survey, emphasizing the methodological concerns of the field through a focused study of building programs in such monuments as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; the Great Mosques of Damascus, Samarra, Cordoba, Marrakesh, Isfahan, Samarqand, Cairo, Istanbul, Delhi and Agra; and other building types including madrasas, shrines, mausoleums, caravansarays, palaces, and gardens. |
| HAA 12y. Introduction to Islamic Art: Visual and Portable Arts in Context (650-1650) David J. Roxburgh Introduces key examples of the arts of the book, calligraphy, and portable arts (e.g. ceramics, metalwork, textiles, ivory) made between 650 and 1650 in the Islamic world, from the rise of Islam through to the pre-modern "Gunpowder Empires." Objects are examined in light of their cultural, political, socio-economic, and aesthetic contexts. Themes include production and patronage; systems of object content and use; intermedial correspondences; and cross-cultural relationships of content and form. The selected materials are studied through a range of methodologies. |
| HAA 120n. Art of the Timurids David J. Roxburgh This course examines the art and architecture sponsored by Timur (Tamerlane) and his successors in Greater Iran and Central Asia in the years between Timur's campaigns and the demise of the dynasty's political power in 1507. |
| HAA 121k. Islamic Ornament and the Aesthetics of Abstraction Gülru Necipoğlu In conjunction with a Harvard conference on "Ornament" in Fall 2010, critically explores interpretations of Islamic ornament. Themes include orientalism and ornamentalism, discourses on the "arabesque," resonances of non-figural abstraction with modernism and postmodern aesthetics. |
| HAA 123y. Monuments of Medieval Islamic Architecture (7th-13th c.) Gülru Necipoğlu Introduction to medieval Islamic architecture focusing on the programs of major religious public buildings and palaces within their urban, historical, and political settings. A contextual study of selected monuments such as the Dome of the Rock, the great mosques of Damascus, Samarra, Cordova, Seville, Kairouan, Cairo, Isfahan, Konya, Delhi, and Samarqand. Palatial monuments include Umayyad and Abassid palaces, culminating with the Alhambra. Other building types considered are madrasas, mausoleums, baths, and caravanserais. Emphasis on political uses of architecture, regional variations, decorative modes, uses of the past, and the impact of Islamic architecture in Norman Sicily and Catholic Spain. Cross-listed with the Center for Middle East Studies. |
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HAA 124e. Architecture of the Early Modern Islamic Empires HAA 124z. Architecture and Dynastic Legitimacy: the Early Modern Islamic Empires (1450-1650) |
| HAA 125. Architecture and Urbanism in the Age of Sinan Gülru Necipoğlu The famous Ottoman chief court architect Sinan (1539-88) will be studies from a variety of critical perspectives, addressing dominant issues and new methodological perspectives. Topics in architectural culture include the centralized organization of building practice, urbanism, patronage patterns, the codification of a cononical architectural idiom, the notion of decorum, and conceptual categories in textual descriptions of architecture. Students may pursue comparative projects on architectural production in Europe and the Islamic world. |
| HAA 125e. Orientalist Legacies Paradigmatic Discourses in the Field of Islamic Art Gülru Necipoğlu A critical examination of Orientalist discourses that shaped the construction of Islamic art as a field at the turn of the 20th century and their persistent echoes in current scholarship and exhibitions. Readings focus on late 19th - century historiography, modernist readings of abstract ornament and painting, and such topics as the essential "character" of Islamic art," "alterity of the arabesque," iconoclasm, the so-called Islamic city, the garden as paradise, collecting and exhibiting Islamic objects. |
| HAA 126. Manuscript Making: Painting and the Arts of the Islamic Book (1250-1572) |
| HAA 128. Topics in Arabic Art and Cultrure: the Art of the Qur'an David J. Roxburgh A problem oriented inquiry into Arabic art and culture (ca. 750 to 1300), focusing on regions circling the Mediterranean, from the Iberian Peninsula to Iraq. Materials (the book, painting, portable arts, epigraphy, architecture) and geographic focus vary. Themes also change, but include relations between art and literature, aesthetics, vision and perception, courtly culture, the rise of a mercantile patron class, and cultural continuities and resurgences. The art of the Qur’an is the focus in 2007. |
| HAA 128. Topics in Arabic Art and Culture: the Western Mediterranean David J. Roxburgh A problem oriented inquiry into Arabic art and culture (ca. 750 to 1300), focusing on regions circling the Mediterranean, from the Iberian Peninsula to Iraq. Materials (the book, painting, portable arts, epigraphy, architecture) and geographic focus vary. Themes also change, but include relations between art and literature, aesthetics, vision and perception, courtly culture, the rise of a mercantile patron class, and cultural continuities and resurgences. The Western Mediterranean is the focus in 2003. |
| HAA 128g. Islamic Epigraphy and Calligraphy: Spiritual Geometries and Bodily Instruments David J. Roxburgh Examines the uses of writing on different art forms including architecture from the Islamic lands with an emphasis on the period between ca. 600 and 1500. The course will introduce key methodologies in the study of writing and the full range of scripts, orthographic conventions, and textual content. Aesthetic, cultural, sociopolitical questions and critical issues such as the text as image debate will be treated. No knowledge of Arabic or Persian is required. |
| HAA 129. Islamic Pilgrimage David J. Roxburgh Examines Islamic pilgrimage, worship, and ceremonial practices through architectural and urban settings and the pilgrim's material appurtenances. Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem provide the main focus, but also considered are the development of shrines and shrine complexes throughout Iran, Egypt, and North Africa. Additional themes include the imaging of holy places, and the illustration of hagiographical and eschatological texts. Cross-listed with the Center for Middle East Studies. |
| HAA 183v. Architecture of Mughal India Ebba Koch This course provides a view of key themes of Mughal architecture within a loose chronological frame work. Buildings, architectural complexes and also formal gardens are studied through a range of methodologies: architectural surveying, formal analysis and comparison, and an examination in light of their cultural, political and socio-economic context. Themes include patronage, the question of the architects, landownership of the nobility, urban planning and the relationship between form, function and symbolic meaning. Mughal court culture is addressed as well as the artistic interactions with other Islamic courts and Europe. |
| HAA 221. Visual Encounters: Artistic Relations Between Europe and the Islamic World Gülru Necipoğlu and David J. Roxburgh The impact of European art on Islamci visual culture is explored in aesthetic, cutlural, scientific, and philosophical terms to understand the receptivity to Western architecture and imagery. Focusing on the 15th through 18th century material, the seminar addresses the nature of interaction and reaction. Projects on earlier and later periods encouraged. |
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HAA 222. Ottoman Architectural Culture in the Age of Sinan (1539-88): Identity, Memory, and Decorum |
| HAA 222m. Architecture in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: A Cross-Cultural Perspective Gülru Necipoğlu and Alina Payne Architecture of the eastern Mediterranean basin (at Italian, Ottoman, and Mamluk courts) with emphasis on cross-cultural encounters and transmission of the Romano-Byzantine heritage, science and technology, architectural practice, ornament, urban design, military, religious and domestic architecture. |
| HAA 223x. Islamic Palaces, Pavilions, and Gardens Gülru Necipoğlu Studies architectural and decorative programs of major Islamic palaces, with reference to late antique and ancient Near Eastern models. Themes include the iconography of power, interplay of architecture and ritual, the garden pavilion as a type, and dichotomy between secular and socioreligious monuments. Cross-cultural comparison of palatine traditions is encouraged. Cross-listed with the Graduate School of Design. |
| HAA 224. Architectural Practice in the Islamic World: Visual and Written Evidence Gülru Necipoğlu Graphic conventions in architectural drawings, representations of buildings in miniatures, and written communications between architects and patrons considered to reconstruct processes of architectural practice. Texts studied for organizational aspects of construction, training of architects, conceptualization of design, contemporary perceptions, and aesthetic judgments. Comparisons with medieval and Renaissance Europe encouraged. Cross-listed with the Graduate School of Design. |
| HAA 224m. Drawing in the Pre-modern Islamic World David J. Roxburgh Examines the uses of writing on different art forms including architecture from the Islamic lands with an emphasis on the period between ca. 600 and 1500. The course will introduce key methodologies in the study of writing and the full range of scripts, orthographic conventions, and textual content. Aesthetic, cultural, and sociopolitical questions will be treated and critical issues such as the text as image debate. No knowledge of Arabic or Persian is required. |
| HAA 225. Critical Issues in Islamic Art and Architecture Gülru Necipoğlu A critical examination of major issues and methodological problems that have shaped the field since its construction in the 19th century. Themes include the Orientalist discourse on Islamic art and the Islamic city, uses of the classical heritage, aniconism, the arabesque, calligraphy, collecting and exhibiting Islamic art. Cross-listed with the Graduate School of Design. |
| HAA 225x. Court Workshops in the Post-Monghol Islamic World (1250-1800) Gülru Necipoğlu |
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HAA 226. Collecting Culture: Albums of the Timurid, Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Dynsties |
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HAA 226e. Cross-cultural Artistic Exchanges: Islamic and European Courts HAA 226s. Ottoman Architectural Culture and Urbanism in the Age of Sinan: Seminar |
| HAA 228v. Early Islamic Architecture and Archaeology David J. Roxburgh and Thomas Leisten Focuses on the architectural monuments and sites of early Islam through to ca. 1000-including the regions of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Iran-with an emphasis on the history, techniques, and methods of archaeology. |
| HAA 229. Between Figuration and Abstraction: Persianate Painting (14th-17th c.) David J. Roxburgh Fundamental questions are sidestepped in the study of Persian "miniature" painting (style; authorship; figuration; changing functions of painting within the shifting context of the book), in favor of taxonomic approaches. Seminar examines scholarly definitions of the visual tradition's salient features and explores tensions between these and ones contemporary to production. |
| HAA 229p. Word and Image in Persian Painting David J. Roxburgh Texts of the Persian literary tradition that were illustrated constitute our focus, including Firdawsi's Shahnama and Nizami's Khamsa. Study of word and image is staged through key examples to open new lines of inquiry. |
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History of Art and Architecture 249n. The Travel Narrative and Art History |
| HAA 285v. Taj Mahal Ebba Koch This course examines the Taj Mahal (1632-48), the best-known monumentof India, and the great contribution of the Mughals to world architecture. The emeror Shah Jahan raised this grandest of Mughal mausoleums for a woman: his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal and thus it came to be known as a monument of love. In today's popular culture the Taj Mahal is also a symbol of excellence; in the United States it is used as such proverbially, and no other building has lent its image so frequently to advertising. |