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2024, ICMA Newsletter
Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, which I launched with my team members in Fall 2020, was originally developed as a coping response to the pedagogical constraints caused by the COVID–19 pandemic. As professors and students struggled to pivot to remote teaching and learning, it became clear that the time had come for us scholars to embrace fully the digital turn and to unite as an international community to produce reliable multimedia scholarly content for inclusion in our university courses. Since then, many colleagues have provided us with “Topic” and “Term” talks on subjects falling within their fields of expertise. In the coming year, we also will expand the website to include digital-born exhibitions and web-based projects, theoretical concepts, and cross-institutional collaborations.
The advent of digital humanities now poses the primary historiographical challenge for contemporary and future historians of Islamic art. No longer simply tools to archive and exchange information, digital humanities technologies are evolving into analytical instruments often embedded with under-scrutinized theoretical assumptions. Without a critical mass of systematically developed databases of historical texts, translations, images and overlaying analytical tools, the way Islamic art history is written will increasingly diverge from the rest of art history. This paper makes the case that the pressing need to consider and apply new theoretical frameworks in Islamic art history is being superseded by the digital turn in humanities scholarship. The practice of Islamic art history now needs to actively participate in the design and development of databases and analytical instruments specifically geared toward the interests of Islamic art historians. At the same time, the digital shift presents an opportunity to confront the field’s archival legacies.
The first half of this course offers a survey of the art and architecture of major Islamic dynasties, emphasizing similarities and differences across the breadth of their historical, geographic, and cultural contexts. The religion of Islam and its fundamental concepts and terminology are presented, along with major artworks and monuments. Building upon this foundation, the remainder of the semester explores art historical topics (such as calligraphy, portraiture, and landscape gardens) across dynasties. Throughout the semester, we will draw upon visual and textual primary source material through in-class examinations of short texts and artworks featured on the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site. At the end of the semester, we will visit the Met to see many of these works in person and discuss contemporary practices of displaying Islamic art to the public. Through this course, students will attain confidence in recognizing, describing, and interpreting Islamic art and architecture with a trained eye and a critical mind.
The Journal of Ottoman Studies 49 (2017)
2023 •
What the debacle at Hamline University teaches us about academic freedom and why knowledge still matters. https://newlinesmag.com/essays/islamic-art-is-pivotal-for-understanding-the-richness-of-the-muslim-world/
Horizons in Humanities and Social Sciences
Reframing Islamic Art for the 21st Century2017 •
The celebrated Islamic galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York reopened in 2011 as “Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.” Other major collections of Islamic art have been reorganized and reinstalled in Berlin, Cairo, Cleveland, Copenhagen, Detroit, Kuwait, London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Singapore, and new museums of Islamic art have been established in Doha, Qatar; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Sharjah, U.A.E. In addition, the first museum in North America dedicated to Islamic art recently opened in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This article explores this global phenomenon, identifying it as both a literal and conceptual “reframing of Islamic art for the 21st century,” setting the world stage for new developments in cultural understanding.
International Journal of Islamic Architecture
On Pedagogy: Islamic Art and Architecture in the ClassroomIJIA's Dialogues series brings together scholars and practitioners from across varied disciplines for discussions of critical contemporary issues that interrogate the boundaries between architecture, art, anthropology, archaeology, and history. Its second instalment, held as a webinar in January 2022, was hosted by Associate Editor Emily Neumeier and featured Christiane Gruber, Stephennie Mulder, and Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral. Their conversation addressed a number of pressing issues related to the teaching of Islamic art in a wide range of classroom settings. The speakers touched upon the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-racism and decolonizing initiatives within the field, and the future of several new and ongoing pedagogical endeavours. The following is an edited excerpt from the original discussion.
Introductory chapter of "The Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle East Studies"
The formation and perpetuation of intellectual canons – as consensually agreed upon corpora considered most significant and representative of a time, place or person – rely heavily on closed systems of knowledge. The bound-paper book exemplifies such a closed system and has been a primary form of constructing and disseminating canons of ancient works. The Internet, however, challenges the very structuring principles of knowledge production inherent in books, offering potentially boundless networks of unorchestrated knowledge bits. As scholars, teachers, and students turn more to the Internet for publication, research, and learning, sharply defined canons face disruption. This article analyzes some of the structuring principles of knowledge production and dissemination in the specific case of ancient Near Eastern art, first considering traditional book-based textbooks. These textbooks follow a model of linear temporal development that unfolds from the first to the last page. It then explores the academic trend toward edited, multi-authored compendia as a concurrent development with the open-ended, networked structure of the Internet. Both vehicles of knowledge production offer more diverse sets of works and multivocality; the Internet in particular permits a radical break from authored and edited narratives. Last, the article considers some of the possibilities, as well as limitations, inherent in the Internet, presenting several existing Internet-based platforms with a specific focus on pedogogy, in order to consider the implications and consequences for knowledge production and dissemination in the Digital Age.
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2016 •
Teaching Art of the Middle East and the Islamic World An Art Education Conference
Teaching Art of the Middle East and the Islamic World An Art Education Conference2017 •
2020 •
Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History
Rethinking the Canon of Ancient Near Eastern Art in the Internet Age2016 •
2003 •
Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies, 16(1), p.5.
IslamicArtCuration.pdf2018 •
Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies
Prospects of the Development of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Digital AgeAl-‘Usur al-Wusta: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists
Book Review of Wendy M. K. Shaw. What Is "Islamic" Art? Between Religion and Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), xix + 366 pp. ISBN 978-11-0847-465-8. Price: $28.85 (cloth).2021 •
Journal of Art Historiography
Introduction: The Historiography of Islamic Art and Architecture, 20122012 •
REGARDS, la revue des arts du spectacle (no. 28)
History or Project? The Double Life of Islamic Art Since the 1970s2022 •
Khan, Ahmad. “Islamic Tradition in an Age of Print: Editing, Printing and Publishing the Classical Heritage.” Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage, edited by Ahmad Khan and Elisabeth Kendall, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2016, pp. 52–99.
Islamic Tradition in an Age of Print: Editing, Printing and Publishing the Classical Heritage2016 •
2021 •
2020 •
International Conference on Islamic Studies and Social Sciences (For Students)
TECHNO-RELIGION: CONCEPTUALIZATION OF RELIGIOSITY BETWEEN RELIGIOUS INTERACTIONS AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICES2022 •