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Faculty Abstracts
(click here for bios)
Lourdes Alvarez | Esin
Atil | Kay Broadwater | Charles
Butterworth | Brinda Charry | Philip
Jacks | Rosamond Mack | Natalia
Monteleon | Mary Pixley | Victor
Vicente | Mohamed Zakariya
Lourdes Alvarez
Long before Galland published his celebrated Mille
et une nuits, a rich repertoire of Arab, Persian, and Indian stories
had circulated in medieval Europe. These tales, often presented in frames
analogous to that of the 1001 Nights, are included in some
of the foundational texts of the rising European vernacular literatures
(El Conde Lucanor, TheCanterbury Tales, the Decameron,
etc.). We will take a brief look at how these "Oriental" tales
made their way into Europe, asking how these tales were transformed
upon crossing into new literary and linguistic contexts.
Esin Atil
Ottoman court studios, attached to the Topkapi Palace
in Istanbul, displayed a phenomenal burst of artistic activity in the
mid-16th century, more specifically under the patronage of Sultan Suleyman
the Magnificent (1520-66). During his reign the Ottoman Empire acquired
its most strategic provinces, controlling western Asia, northern Africa,
and eastern Europe. The sultan subjugated Hungary and besieged Vienna,
leading his armies into the heart of Europe; he captured Tabriz and
Baghdad, adding Iraq and western Iran to his empire; his navy was able
to defeat the combined forces of Europe in the Mediterranean and challenge
the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean.
The political might of the empire was matched by its
legendary wealth, which found expression in the sponsorship of art and
architecture. The imperial societies employed hundreds of men whose
backgrounds were as divers as the lands rule by the sultan, their talents
ranging from illumination and illustration of manuscripts to weaving
of rugs and textiles. Artists from Herat, Tabriz, Damascus, and Cairo
worked alongside with those hailing from Circassia, Georgia, Bosnia,
Serbia, Hungary, and even from Austria and Italy, collaborating with
local masters. They created new decorative styles and themes that became
unique to the Ottoman world and survived for centuries. In addition,
they had a strong impact in neighboring cultures and continue to inspire
the arts produced in Turkey today.
This illustrated lecture will identify these styles
and themes, trace their origin and development, and show how they were
re-employed by later European and Turkish artists.
Kay Broadwater
In this two hour hands-on session we will view and
explore a variety of artistic patterns that were influenced from Islam
into the art of the Renaissance. This presentation will specifically
draw attention to how interconnected Arabic and European culture were
in the use of repeated pattern and how there is a link between the Golden
Age of Arab science and culture and the beginning of the Italian Renaissance.
Moreover, this connection is seen in various configurations with mathematics
playing a key role in the development of designs. We will carefully
look at motifs from Arabia and from Europe and recognize that a 2-D
motif can be repeated in only four different ways. We will explore the
four symmetry operations of translation, rotation, reflection and glided
reflection through the art forms of paper cutting and relief block printing.
As we discover the role of pattern in Islam we will see how it is linked
to the Renaissance and to our lives today here in the West.
Charles Butterworth
By the 12th century, Latin translations of works by
Arab-Muslim philosophers were circulating throughout Spain, France,
England, and Italy. Students at the universities of Oxford, Paris, and
Bologna, to name only the most prominent, were quite well-acquainted
with the writings of Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, especially the
latter. Indeed, Dante's reference to Averroes as "the commentator"
in the Divine Comedy resonated with his readers and needed
no learned foot-note for further identification. Praised and even honored
on the one hand for his numerous commentaries on Aristotle, he was excoriated
on the other as the author of the "double-truth theory." Similar
controversies swirled around Alfarabi and Avicenna. In sum, normally
intelligent people in the world of the Renaissance were quite familiar
with Arabic and Islamic culture.
Let us begin by sketching out the brief history of
classical Arabic-Islamic culture from about 825-1400 as well as by saying
just a little about Islam as a religion and as a world force. Then,
looking at Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes to see why they are such
famous representatives of this cultural tradition, we will consider
what Renaissance thinkers have to say about them and their teaching.
What is most striking when one considers what these thinkers stood for
and how they were passed on to later generations is what is not said
about their teaching, namely, its foundation in the practical or political
and ethical teaching of Plato and Aristotle and development of that
teaching. Political and ethical reflections give way in Renaissance
thinking about Arabic-Islamic culture to metaphysical reflections. How
that happens and what it signifies are worth pondering.
Brinda Charry
The session will survey representations of Islam and
the Islamic "Orient" in English Renaissance Drama. We will
discuss ways to teach Renaissance literature, including Shakespeare,
in such a way that England's growing awareness of cultural and racial
difference gets foregrounded in the classroom. The focus will be English
imaginings of Islam and how they remain a submerged presence even in
well-known plays such as Shakespeare's Othello.
Philip Jacks
As early as the twelfth century, Islamic design began
to permeate the building arts in Italy through channels of trade. In
Venice, with its mercantile contacts to the Ottoman Turks, palace-warehouses,
called by the Arabic fondaco, dotted the Grand Canal with their
ogive arches of Muslim origin. The Levantine community flourished in
this maritime republic with its distinctive dress and customs, particularly
through the establishment of the Ghetto Novo and
Novissimo for the Jewish population. After the fall
of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, Venetian artists, notably Gentile
Bellini, travelled to the court of Mehmet I to work alongside Islamic
scribes and painters; the work they brought back reflected the merging
of aesthetic principles between East and West.
Islamic lusterware, imported into Italy beginning
in the fourteenth century, came to be known as maiolica from
the island of Mallorca, the primary center of Mozarabic production.
This technique inspired a large industry around Urbino, Castel Durante
and Deruta in the Umbrian region. Painters imitated the patterns of
Islamic decoration, while incorporating religious and mythological subjects
taken from Italian Renaissance art.
In Spain, Islamic decoration never really died out
following the expulsion of the Moors from Granada and Cordoba in 1492.
The interfacing of these two visual cultures -- sometimes referred to
as mudejar -- flourished during the reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, as in the expiatory church of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo,
and more notably, under the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. His imperial
residence in Granada rose alongside the great caliphate palace of the
Alhambra, parts of which were refurbished by Christian artisans. In
Cordoba, Charles V commissioned a Christian basilica embedded within
the great Mezquita of the Abbasid caliphate.
Rosamond Mack
Between about 1300 and 1550, manufactured goods imported
from various Islamic lands served as models for Italy's decorative arts:
silk textiles, ceramics, glass, gold-tooled leather, and inlaid brass.
The influential imports reflected changes in the foreign production
centers and international trade routes during this period. Changes in
the Italian culture and economy determined the timing and pace of development
in the individual Italian crafts. The extended period of the Italian
developmental process, and its various foreign sources, contributed
to diversity in the types of objects produced, and in their decoration.
Mary Pixley
The field of Islamic art before 1600 is a broad one
encompassing the artistic production of almost a thousand years of many
Islamic cultures that existed over a wide geographical area. In studying
the influence of Islamic art on Renaissance Europe, this illustrated
lecture will survey a number of the different cultures making up the
world of Islam from the origins of Islam until the end of the seventeenth
century and the artistic objects associated with them. Through the channels
of travel, trade, collecting, diplomatic relations, and war, pieces
of Islamic art arrived in Europe, including examples of glassware, pottery,
ivory and rock crystal carving, textiles, carpets, bookbindings, and
metalwork. The objects were highly valued entering the collections of
monarchs and church treasuries. Both the objects themselves and the
decorations covering them, including the arabesques, knot patterns,
geometric patterns, and calligraphy, influenced western art over a long
period of time. The multifaceted and complex nature of the impact of
Islamic art and decoration on European artistic production will become
apparent as we explore the wide nature of this influence which ebbed
and flowed throughout the art of Europe.
Victor Vicente
Music is an ephemeral art and mode of communication;
once heard, sounds dissolve into memory. Of all the world's ancient
musics however, those of Medieval Europe and the Near East prove to
be among the most resilient, for they live on in both written and oral
forms. Their survival attests to the centrality of music in the religious,
intellectual, and daily lives of Medieval Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
The documented musical legacy indicates mutual influence and coexistence
between peoples of three related but very different cultures. This presentation
will examine this spirit of artistic collaboration through an overview
of some of the most important genres of music among the three monotheistic
cultures, highlighting points of commonality and difference. The place
of music within the other arts, science, religion, and politics will
also be discussed, and approaches on incorporating music in a multidisciplinary
manner will be provided. The presentation will conclude by addressing
the many ways in which these traditions resonate in our world today.
Artistic Faculty
Natalia Monteleon
A brief discussion of the origins and routes of flamenco
will touch on the influence of Arabic as well as other cultures on
the genre, followed by a brief discussion of basic elements of the
dance, singing, and music. We will review basic steps and positions,
using upper body, clapping, and arm movements and basic footwork steps,
using feet to provide a percussive element to the music. We will then
perform, putting all of the elements together into a basic routine.
Participants to do not have to perform solo unless they want to. The
"routine" will show how the footwork, arm movements, hand
clapping all go together, and how the dance coordinates with the music.
Mohamed Zakariya
This slide-lecture will treat the origins and development
of Islamic calligraphy in a number of locations. Particular attention
will be paid to the later Ottoman period, which is the finest expression
of Islamic calligraphy. Calligraphic styles and technique will be
presented, and reference will be made to the appearance and adoption
of Baroque and Rococo aesthetic elements imported from Europe and
adapted for the Ottoman sensibility. The presentation will be followed
by a question-and-answer period.
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