Art & Environment in the Islamic World

The Islamic world spans a vast array of landscapes and climates that each present unique challenges to their human occupants. This seminar explores how artists, architects, patrons, and urban planners in the Islamic world related to these diverse environments and their many nonhuman inhabitants. Investigating the intersections of archaeology, art and architectural history, climate history, eco-criticism, environmental history, garden and landscape studies, manuscript studies, and legal and religious studies the class centers on case studies from areas including Pre-Islamic Arabia, the Umayyad Levant, Abbasid Iraq, Umayyad Iberia, Norman Sicily, Mamluk Egypt, Nasrid Granada, and Mughal India.