This course is an exercise in thinking about human perception and knowing in relation to the history of Islamic art and visual culture. It tracks the expression of theories of beauty and truth in great works of art and architecture, spanning from the seventh century CE to the present day, and including sites across the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, East Africa, Europe, and the United States. Equally, it aims to examine our own contemporary habits of assessing beauty and truth, and their fit (or lack thereof) when confronted with a diversity of arts made in distinct historical conditions of belief, interpretation and education, patronage, production, circulation, gender and sexuality, displacement and migration, and more.
This is a lower division course designed to meet Arts and Literature and Philosophy and Values distribution requirements. No prior knowledge of Art History or of Islam is presumed, but students must be motivated to learn about both.