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Faculty Biographies
(click here for abstracts)
Lourdes Alvarez | Esin
Atil | Kay Broadwater | Charles
Butterworth | Brinda Charry | Susan
Douglass | Philip Jacks | Rosamond
Mack | Natalia Monteleon | Mary
Pixley | Victor Vicente | Mohamed
Zakariya
Lourdes Alvarez
Lourdes Alvarez is currently Assistant Professor of
Spanish and Comparative Literature at the Catholic University of America.
She holds a PhD in Spanish from Yale University and has been awarded
numerous grants including a Fulbright Senior Scholarship for research
in Morocco. Her research focuses on the literary and cultural intersections
between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Islamic Spain. She has published
articles on Andalusian mystical poetry, on women poets of al-Andalus,
on the writings of converts (from Judaism to Christianity, from Christianity
to Islam, from Islam to Christianity) and translators. Recent publications
include, "The Mystical Language of Daily Life: The Arabic Vernacular
Songs of Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari," forthcoming from Exemplaria,
and "That Still-flickering Light: Reading and Teaching the Women
Poets of al-Andalus," published in La Corónica,
2003. She is currently finishing a book project entitled "Singing
at the Crossroads of Cultures: Popular Music in Islamic Spain and Beyond."
Esin Atil
Esin Atil received her first B.A. in literature and
drama, and her second B.A. in applied arts and art history. She attended
the graduate program of the University of Michigan, where she received
her M.A. in European art and her Ph.D. in Islamic art. In 1970, Dr.
Atil joined the Smithsonian Institution as the Curator of Islamic Art
at the Freer Gallery of Art, a post which she held for fifteen years.
She later served as Historian of Islamic Art at the Freer Gallery of
Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, two Smithsonian museums devoted
to Asian art. After her retirement in 1993, she was appointed Research
Associate at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, and National Museum of
Natural History.
Dr. Atil has organized numerous exhibitions and published
close to twenty books on the artistic traditions of the Islamic world,
the subjects of which range from studies on manuscripts, ceramics, and
metalwork, to surveys of Mamluk and Ottoman art. The first exhibitions
she organized and wrote catalogues for were: 2500 Years of Persian
Art (1971), Turkish Art of the Ottoman Period (1973),
Ceramics from the World of Islam (1974), and Art of the
Arab World (1975). Her subsequent major exhibitions and related
publications include Brush of the Masters: Drawings from Iran and
India (1978); Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks
and Kalila wa Dimna: Fables from a Fourteenth-Century Arabic Manuscript
(both 1981); and Islamic Metalwork in the Freer Gallery of Art
(1986).
Between 1985 and 1987, Dr. Atil was Guest Curator at
the National Gallery of Art, where she published the Suleymanname:
The Illustrated History of Suleyman the Magnificent (1986); as
well as The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1987),
to accompany the traveling exhibition of the same title, which she organized.
In 1987 she received the Grand Award for Culture and Art from the President
of Turkey and the Medal of Honor from the Assembly of Turkish American
Associations for her work on this exhibition; the same year she was
awarded honorary doctorates from the Bogazici and Karadeniz Universities.
Dr. Atil served as Guest Curator of the exhibition
Islamic Art and Patronage: Treasures from Kuwait, which was
shown in the United States in 1990-92, then toured Europe; she was also
the editor of the volume with the same title, which was translated into
French, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Arabic. Her latest publications
include Images of Imperial Istanbul, a facsimile of sixteenth-century
panoramic views (1993); and chapters on "The Ottoman World in
the Nineteenth-Century" in Voyages and Visions and "The
Arts of Islam" in the Muslim Almanac (both 1995). After
conducting extensive research on the figural imagery of the social,
political, and economic milieu of the Ottoman world as observed in an
illustrated manuscript, which she published in facsimile as Levni
and the Surname: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival
(1999).
Kay Broadwater
Kay Arwady Broadwater has been a member of the art
faculty at Towson University for the past 23 years. She holds a Ph.D.
in art education from Union Institute and University and was the 2002
National Art Education Association Eastern Region Art Educator of the
Year. She is currently the Curriculum Expert for the Arts Integration
Institute of Towson University and is involved in arts education as
consultant for Young Audiences of Maryland and evaluator for the Delaware
Center for Contemporary Arts. Currently, Broadwater is serving as Contributing
Editor for SchoolArts Magazine where she is the writer of a
monthly column. Broadwater also founded an outreach program that links
university students with urban youth to explore visual arts together,
break down stereotypes, learn about human commonality and difference,
integrate theory with practice and encourage the urban youth in gaining
a vision for attending college in the future.
Charles Butterworth
Professor of Government and Politics at the University
of Maryland, College Park, Charles Butterworth specializes in medieval
Arabic and Islamic political philosophy. Pursuit of this academic interest
has permitted him to live and study in most of the Arabic speaking countries
of the Middle East and North Africa as well as in Europe. From time
to time, he has lectured and taught at universities in Egypt, the West
Bank, Gaza, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey,
Zaire, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Belorussia, France, Germany, Hungary, and
Ukraine.
Professor Butterworth's publications include critical
editions of most of the Middle Commentaries written by Averroes on Aristotle's
logic; translations of books and treatises by Averroes, Alfarabi, and
Alrazi, as well as Maimonides; and studies of different aspects of the
political teaching of these and other thinkers in the ancient, medieval,
and modern tradition of philosophy. Butterworth has also written monograph
analyses of the political thought of Frantz Fanon and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
He is a member of several learned organizations and past-president of
the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies (ACSIS) as well
as of the Société Internationale pour l'Étude de
l'Histoire de la Philosophie et la Science Arabe et Islamique (SIHSPAI).
Trained in political philosophy and Arabic as well
as Islamic civilization at the University of Chicago, where he received
an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science, Charles Butterworth has also
studied at the University of Ayn Shams in Egypt, the University of Bordeaux,
and the University of Nancy in France (receiving a doctorate in philosophy
from the latter). He received his B.A. from Michigan State University.
Before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland,
Professor Butterworth taught at the University of Chicago and Federal
City College (now the University of the District of Columbia). He has
also taught at St. John's College, Georgetown University, and Harvard
University, in addition to Marmara University, the University of Bordeaux,
the University of Grenoble, the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), the
University of Paris X (Nanterre), and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes.
For several years he was the Principal Investigator
for the Smithsonian sponsored Project in Medieval Islamic Logic in Cairo,
Egypt. He has also been the Principal Investigator for a project on
medieval Islamic logic sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities
and has organized a two-week Salzburg seminar on "The Commonality
of Cultural Traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."
A long-standing interest in the Palestinian-Israeli
debate led to his involvement with CEEPAT (Continuing Education and
Extension Project for Palestinians and Teachers on the West Bank and
in Gaza). CEEPAT, a program for higher education addressed primarily
to teachers in service, seeks to sharpen thinking skills and increase
general learning so that teachers might come to think of themselves
as having something worthwhile to pass on to their students and gain
the confidence to do so without resorting to methods that stifle the
interest of their students.
In 1992-1993, he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. during which time
he pursued a project on the relationship between revelation and political
philosophy. From October 1999 until March 2000, Butterworth held a Fulbright
Senior Scholar Research and Lecturing Award at the Friedrich-Alexander
Universität in Erlangen, Germany and from May through August 2000
a German Academic Exchange Professorship at the same university. Also,
during May and June 2000, he gave a series of lectures at the Institut
du Monde Arabe in Paris entitled "Des origines de la philosophie
politique en Islam."
At the University of Maryland, he has been recognized
as a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher (1990-91) and, in 2001-02, for an
award in Excellence in Teaching and Mentorship granted by the College
of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
Brinda Charry
Born and raised in India, Brinda Charry came to the
United States four years ago for her doctoral studies at Syracuse University.
Her area of research is literary representations of political, commercial
and cultural exchange between England and the Islamic East. She teaches
courses in Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, literary theory, postcolonial
fiction and Indian fiction in English at Syracuse. She also writes and
publishes fiction; her novel The Hottest Day of the Year was
published in India and the United Kingdom in 2003.
Susan Douglass
Susan Douglass is a social studies educator with experience
in teaching, curriculum and instructional design, who serves on the
Executive Council of the World History Association.. She has a M.A.
in Arab Studies & History from Georgetown University and a B.A.
in History from the University of Rochester. She is employed as Principal
Analyst for the Council on Islamic Education, working on textbooks,
curriculum, and teacher resources.
Publications include Strategies and Structures
for Presenting World History (1994), Beyond A Thousand and
One Nights: Literature from Muslim Civilization (1999), a teaching
resource collection The Emergence of Renaissance: Cultural Interactions
between Europeans and Muslims (co-author with Karima Alavi,1999),
and a teaching unit published by the National Center for History in
the Schools. She is the author of the study Teaching About Religion
in National and State Social Studies Standards (2000), co-published
by the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center.
Recent publications include the reference volume World
Eras:Rise and Spread of Islam, 622-1500 (Thomson/Gale, 2002) and
the children's book Ramadan (Carolrhoda Books, 2003).
Current projects include research teamwork for an online curriculum
project "World History for Us All," sponsored by the National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and San Diego State University, and
a study of national and state standards for teaching world studies.
Philip Jacks
Philip Jacks is associate professor of fine arts and
art history at George Washington University, where he teaches courses
on painting, architecture, and sculpture in Renaissance Italy. His publications
include an edition of Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Renaissance
Artists, published by Random House in 2004, The Spinelli of
Florence: Fortunes of a Renaissance Merchant Family (with William
Caferro), published by Penn State University Press in 2001, Vasari's
Florence: Artists and Literati at the Medicean Court, edited for
Cambridge University Press in 1998, and The Antiquarian and the
Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought,
published by Cambridge University Press in 1992, as well as articles
published in Art Bulletin, Romisches Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte,
Arte Lombarda, Renaissance Quarterly, and Architectura.
Professor Jacks received a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship and a Samuel H.
Kress Foundation Fellowship to Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome in 1981-83.
In 1994, he directed a National Endowment for the Humanities International
Conference, "The Age of Giorgio Vasari: Art, Literature, and History
at the Medicean Court" at Yale University. He is also the recipient
of a Bender Undergraduate Teaching Award from George Washington University
in 2001.
Rosamond Mack
Rosamond Mack is an art historian who earned her Ph.D.
in Italian Renaissance painting and her M.A. in fine arts from Harvard
and her B.A. in Art and Italian from Mount Holyoke College, following
which she spent fourteen years in the Middle East and North Africa during
her husband's Foreign Service assignments. She has been an assistant
curator at and frequent consultant to the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C., taught courses at Georgetown University, and given
lectures around the world, including lectures at the National Gallery
of Art in Washington, D.C., the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya
in Kuwait, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She has also
spoken at numerous other institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution,
the Textile Museum, Georgetown University, Mount Holyoke College, Dumbarton
Oaks, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Amherst College, Loyola University of
Chicago, and the American University of Sharjah, the Harvard Club of
New York, and Harvard Alumni Association sponsored cruises. Recent publications
include Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600,
2002, "Carlo Crivelli" and"Marco Zoppo" in the
scholarly catalogue of fifteenth-century Italian paintings, published
by the National Gallery of Art in 2003, "Islamic Commerce and
Italian Art," in Splendour of the Medieval Mediterranean,
in press at the European Institute of the Mediterranean, Barcelona,
and "Oriental Carpets in Italian Renaissance Paintings: Art Objects
and Status Symbols" forthcoming in The Magazine Antiques.
Mary Pixley
Mary Pixley is a professional researcher in art history
with experience in university teaching. She has a Ph.D. and M.A. in
the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in
the History of Art from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
She specializes in cross-cultural art history with an emphasis on the
influence of Islamic art on Italian art during the Renaissance and her
research encompasses a variety of media including ceramics, metalwork,
glass, rock crystal, ivory, and textiles and carpets, and she is particularly
interested in decorative patterns. Her recent work as a Research Associate
at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. permitted her to study in more depth
the complex nature of cross-cultural artistic influence and the complexity
of the Italian, Islamic, and Chinese nexus.
She recently published some of the results of this
research in "Islamic Artifacts and Cultural Currents in the Art
of Carpaccio", Apollo, November 2003, which considers
the representation and presence of Mamluk, Ottoman, and Timurid manufactures
in Venice. The article "Sargent after Velázquez:
The Prado Studies" in The Burlington Magazine,
September 2003, that she co-authored considers the formative influence
of the Spanish master on John Singer Sargent. She has also contributed
to various catalogues on the history of art including the forthcoming
Catalogue of Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings in the National
Gallery, London. Current projects include research on blue and
white ceramics and the transmission of decorative patterns.
Victor Vicente
Victor Vicente is a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology
at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is currently writing
a Ph.D. dissertation on music and Islam in Turkey and has conducted
fieldwork in both Turkey and India on music and Islamic mysticism. He
is a lecturer in the School of Music at the University of Maryland and
teaches introductory courses in world music. Previously, his research
focused on music and humanist philosophy in Renaissance Portugal, and
he has experience performing European music of the Medieval and Renaissance
eras on various period instruments.
Artistic Faculty
Natalia Monteleon
Natalia Monteleon has been involved in flamenco for
over 25 years, as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, and is the director
of Arte Flamenco Dance Company, and teaching studio. The company has
twice been awarded grants by the Maryland State Arts Council. They have
just concluded their 3rd performance at the Kennedy Center's Millennium
Stage, and their 7th Annual Spring Concert, at the Baltimore Museum
of Art.
As soloist for various dance companies Natalia has
performed at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, Wolf Trap Theater,
George Washington University's Lisner Theater, the Warner Theater of
Washington, the Embassies of France and Spain, the University of New
Orleans, and the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans. She has recorded
with Brother Ah's New World Ensemble cd "Celebration",
and was dance director for the Gala Theater production of the "House
of Bernarda Alba", and dance consultant for Arena's Stage's
production of "Yerma".
As director of Arte Flamenco, Ms. Monteleon, has taken
the company to the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Millennium Stage, Baltimore
Artscape, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the American
Theater in Hampton, VA, all major Hispanic and International music venues
throughout the mid-Atlantic region, and participated in productions
for Montgomery County, and Maryland Public TV. Classes are available
from beginner to advanced/performer.
Mohamed Zakariya
Mohamed Zakariya, designer of the U.S. Postal Service
"Eid Greetings" stamp, is an Islamic calligrapher, artist,
and maker of custom instruments from the history of science. Born in
Ventura, California in 1942, he began his study of Islamic calligraphy
in 1961. After continuing his studies independently at the British Museum,
he was invited in 1984 by the Research Center for Islamic History, Art,
and Culture (IRCICA) in Istanbul to study there with two celebrated
Turkish calligraphers: Hasan Celebi for the Sulus, Nesih, and
other scripts and Ali Alparslan for the Nestalik script. In
1988, Mr. Zakariya received the prized icazet (diploma) from
Mr. Celebi in a ceremony at the Yildiz Sarayi in Istanbul. In 1997,
he received the icazet from Dr. Alparslan, also at the Yildiz Sarayi
and under the auspices of IRCICA. Mr. Zakariya, who continues to study
with Mr. Celebi and Dr. Alparslan, now has students of his own.
A frequent presenter on Islamic calligraphy and art
and on interfaith subjects, Mr. Zakariya has given workshops and lectures
for such institutions as the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, and in Washington, the
Smithsonian Institution, the Middle East Institute, and the National
Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. He has also
given presentations at a number of colleges and universities, including
Harvard, Princeton, Georgetown, George Washington, DePaul, and Washington
and Lee, and is a member of the Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar
Joint Advisory Board for the VCU School of the Arts in Qatar.
In 2004, Mr. Zakariya won the prize for a composition
in Ottoman-style Celi Talik script in IRCICA's triennial
calligraphy competition. That same year, he received the 2004 American
Muslim Achievement Award from the Islamic Center of Southern California.
His calligraphy was exhibited along with works by Hebrew calligrapher
Neal Yerman and Christian calligrapher Karen Gorst in "Writing
the Sublime: The Art of Calligraphy in the Religions of Abraham"
at the Interfaith Center's Onisaburo Gallery in New York, November
2003 through January 2004. In 2001, Mr. Zakariya designed and did the
calligraphy for the U.S. Postal Service's "Eid Greetings"
stamp, the first U.S. stamp to commemmorate Muslim holidays, and took
part in the ceremonies launching the stamp at the ISNA conference at
Des Plaines, Ill., in September 2001.In 1994, Mr. Zakariya designed
the calligraphic panels for the Muslim Community Center Mosque in Silver
Spring, Maryland, and in 2003, he designed the interior and did the
calligraphy for the Mosque of Two Columns at Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C. In 1990 and 1997, his calligraphy was exhibited, along
with that of his teachers, at the Yildiz Sarayi in Istanbul. One of
his works is now in the collection of the Calligraphy Museum of Turkpetrol
Vakfi in Istanbul, the finest private museum of Islamic calligraphic
art in the world. Mr. Zakariya contributed to The Art of the Pen,
by Nabil Safwat, published by the Khalili Collection in 1996. His translations
from the Turkish include The Art of Calligraphy, by M. Ugur
Derman, published in 1998 by IRCICA, and Professor Derman's Letters
in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sakip Sabanci Collection, Istanbul,
the catalogue of an exhibit appearing during 1998-99 at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum, and Harvard's Sackler
Gallery. For the same exhibit, he wrote a monograph, Music for the
Eyes: An Introduction to Islamic and Ottoman Calligraphy. Mr. Zakariya
also calligraphed "The Burda of Al-Busiri" (The Poem of the
Cloak) for a book accompanying a CD set issued by Sandala in 2001.
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