“BROKER STATES & THE ARTICULATION OF MEDIEVAL AFRICA WITH THE ISLAMIC WORLD”

François-Xavier Fauvelle, Collège de France

Wednesday, October 7th, 12:30pm

[Online] Silsila Fall 2020 Lecture Series, Islam in Africa: Material Histories

A detail of the famous Catalan Atlas (1375) shows a city called “Ciutat de Melly”, “City of Mali”. The location of this place, very likely the capital of the then famous empire in Mali described by several Arabic geographers and travelers of the 14th century CE, has been the subject of intense debates.

The interconnection between several regions of Sub-Saharan Africa with the rest of the medieval oecumene is now a well-established fact. However, the multiple forms of these interconnections remain to be carefully studied. Based on his own experience of discovering several Ethiopian Muslim cities from the Middle Ages, including the capital of the sultanate of Ifât, as well as comparisons with medieval Northwest and East Africa, Fauvelle observes that many African polities of the time had their capital on ecological thresholds. Hence it is suggested that such counter-intuitive environments may explain both how these “broker states” functioned as commercial interfaces with the Islamicate world and why many once-famous sites still remain elusive to the researchers.

François-Xavier Fauvelle, is an Africanist historian and archaeologist, and Professor at the Collège de France. He was the coordinator of several historical and archaeological research programs in Ethiopia, and for the last ten years has been leading the French-Moroccan program of excavations at Sijilmâsa, an Islamic medieval city in Morocco. He is the author of around 150 academic articles, and the author or editor of around 20 books, including The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2018).Date: Wednesday, October 7thTime: 12:30-2:30pm
Location: Online

This event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm ET (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link:
https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WvWR0pqCSg-6Hwszg2O60w
Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.Silsila: Center for Material Histories is an NYU center dedicated to material histories of the Islamicate world. Each semester we hold a thematic series of lectures and workshops, which are open to the public. Details of the Center can be found at: 

http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/silsila.html

Congratulations to Pepe Karmel!

Abstract Art: A Global History by Pepe Karmel (Thames & Hudson, 2020)

Please read the first review of Professor Karmel’s new book!

“ITEMS OF VALUE IN THE WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN”

Stephanie Wynne-Jones, University of York

Wednesday, September 30th, 12:30pm

[Online] Silsila Fall 2020 Lecture Series, Islam in Africa: Material Histories

A zidaka (set of niches) displaying valued objects in a house in contemporary Lamu.

The concept of value is central to exploring the material world of the Swahili, a culture defined by its trading relationships with both African and international partners. Yet, scholars have rarely questioned how value was conceived, where it resided and for whom, or how it related to different material practices. This paper will explore these questions in relation to the archaeological record of materials from the 8th – 15th century Swahili coast, putting these into the context of a broad web of trading relationships that encompass the African interior as well as the Indian Ocean world.

Stephanie Wynne-Jones is an archaeologist specialising in eastern Africa. She has directed projects across the region, notably on the Swahili coast, exploring aspects of precolonial urbanism and society. She has a particular interest in material culture and has published widely on past interactions with objects and with the built environment, including a 2016 book A Material Culture: precolonial consumption and materiality on the East African coast (Oxford).Date: Wednesday, September 30thTime: 12:30-2:30pm
Location: Online

This event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm ET (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link:
https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_D4QUih9aTzO9A4O7ktmmWg
Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.Silsila: Center for Material Histories is an NYU center dedicated to material histories of the Islamicate world. Each semester we hold a thematic series of lectures and workshops, which are open to the public. Details of the Center can be found at: 

http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/silsila.html

Lyneise Williams (Associate Professor of Art History, UNC-Chapel Hill) “Expanding the Spaces of Art History”

Tues Oct 6 @ 6:30pm
Via Zoom

Please find below the Zoom registration link to Lyneise Williams’s invited lecture on Tuesday, October 6 (6.30pm).
https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2DQY8xj4SX67mJgRjSCeFg 

Professor Williams will introduce us to her latest collaborative initiative: VERA (Visual Electronic Representations in the Archive), a project born of her research on representations of Black athletes in early twentieth-century Paris.

Decapitated: Reassembling the Biographies of Ancient Mediterranean Objects

Tonight(!) at 6:30, Prof. Hopkins will speak (Zoom webinar) to the New York Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America about museum collecting practices, ancient art and the study of object biographies.  Ancient objects typically have long and complex lives. Their many uses (and re-uses) in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek or Roman contexts imbue them with extraordinary significance for the study of the past, but their modern rediscoveries and uses by looters, dealers, collectors, museums and academics often provide further twist to their (hi)stories. Often, important moments from their biographies are lost or purposefully hidden. While such obscurity can limit their value and do irreparable harm, new methods and perspectives in archaeological and museological research have opened some interesting doors. This talk will introduce a large-scale project to reassemble the biographies of ancient Mediterranean objects held at the Menil Collection, a prestigious art museum in Houston. After an overview of the purposes, practices and initial results, I will focus on one example from the collection and the value regained by opening up archives, acquisition records and museum files in a collaborative new effort between museums and the academic community.
Link to lecture information: http://aia-nysociety.org/september-21-lecture-by-john-north-hopkins/#more-829
Register to attend: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E9nrqBiKRiOmjOK1ej0HeA

Congratulations to the Excellent Geoffrey Tortora!

Join us in congratulating Geoff who won an Excellence Award for the 2020 academic year – no further explanation needed!

The Arts and Science Excellence Award is designed to recognize the outstanding contributions of the administrative, clerical and technical staff within Arts and Science.

“CONTINUITIES AND CROSSINGS – EAST AFRICAN ILLUMINATED QUR’ANS FROM FAZA AND SIYU”

Zulfikar Hirji, York University, Toronto

Wednesday, September 23rd, 12:30pm

[Online] Silsila Fall 2020 Lecture Series, Islam in Africa: Material Histories

Left folio of a double-page from an illuminated Qur’an manuscript showing a sura heading at Sūrat al-A‘rāf(Q. 7), basmala, and al-nisf marker, fol. 147v. Copied by Khatīb b. ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Sīwyī. Siyu, Pate Island, Kenya, ca. 19th century. Reproduced courtesy of the family of the late
Sheikh Mbarak al-Hinawy, Oman.

Drawing upon ongoing research on a little-known corpus of remarkable ca. late 18th-early 19th century illuminated Qur’an manuscripts from Coastal East Africa, this paper situates the Islamic material production of this region within broader debates about Islamic art in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly questions about origins and influences. An exploration of these Qur’ans’ decorative programs, calligraphic styles, bindings, paper, scribal signatures, waqf inscriptions, and annotations, provides new evidence to explore the historical and socio-cultural contexts in which Muslims of the East African coast produced diverse material expressions of their faith.

Zulfikar Hirji is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology, York University (Toronto), and has held fellowships at the University of Oxford, the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, and the Institute of Ismaili Studies. His research focusses on Muslim knowledge production, representation and identity, visual and material culture in a range of historical and contemporary contexts, particularly around the Western Indian Ocean. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and South Asia. He is the co-author of The Ismailis: An Illustrated History (2008), editor of Diversity and Pluralism in Muslim Contexts (2010), author of Between Empires: Sheikh-Sir Mbarak al-Hinawy, 1896-1959 (2012), co-author of Islam: An Illustrated Journey (2018), and editor of Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa (2019).Date: Wednesday, September 23rdTime: 12:30-2:30pm
Location: Online

This event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm ET (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link:
https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qVn1IjBIQ_S_mNgiSstvFQ
Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.Silsila: Center for Material Histories is an NYU center dedicated to material histories of the Islamicate world. Each semester we hold a thematic series of lectures and workshops, which are open to the public. Details of the Center can be found at: 

http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/silsila.html

Looking Back with a Virtual Tour of “New York Cool”

Painting and Sculpture from the NYU Art Collection

April 22–July 16, 2008

Installation view of New York Cool: Painting and Sculpture from the NYU Art Collection, 2008

We announced last week that the Grey Art Gallery will remain closed until fall 2021, and will serve as a study center for NYU students in the interim. Though we will have to wait to welcome you back to the museum for new exhibitions, we are taking this opportunity to create digital content that further our mission to study art in its historical and sociocultural contexts. Our newest video feature looks back on our 2008 exhibition, New York Cool: Painting and Sculpture from the NYU Art Collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT1pEcM2s6I&feature=youtu.be

We’re happy to share this narrated tour of the Grey Art Gallery’s exhibition New York Cool,created by Saga Beus, graduate intern at the Grey Art Gallery who received an MA in NYU’s Museum Studies Program in May 2020.  Using both installation shots and images of individual works, she discusses how New York artists, many living downtown in Greenwich Village and, later, SoHo, fostered a new kind of personal sensibility in tandem with a seemingly impersonal geometric style. Allusive instead of expressive, understated rather than declarative, the painting and sculpture of this time set the stage for everything that followed. Works in the exhibition are drawn from the New York University Art Collection, which was founded in 1958 and is particularly rich in New York School works. Closed captions available.

Watch the tour

Copyright © 2020 Grey Art Gallery, NYU. Our mailing address is: Grey Art Gallery, NYU 100 Washington Square East New York, NY 10003 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

CALL FOR ENTRIES, NYU STUDENT WRITING PRIZE COMPETITIONS

Focusing on the Grey Art Gallery’s exhibition Taking Shape: Abstract Art from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s

The Taking Shape NYU Student Writing Prize Competitions will award $250 each for the best short prose piece or poem written by an NYU undergraduate and graduate student in response to the Grey’s recent exhibition. Entrants are encouraged to work from images and documents available on the Grey’s website (see below for links). Two second-place winners will receive $100 each, and two honorable mentions $50 each. Each of the six winners will also receive a copy of the exhibition catalogue.

Co-sponsored by NYU’s Grey Art Gallery and Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.

The submission deadline is Friday, October 16, 2020. Dr. Lucy Oakley, Head of Education and Programs at the Grey, will conduct a blind review of submissions and select the winners. The six winning entries will be published in The Grey Area, the Grey Art Gallery’s blog.

To enter, please follow these instructions carefully:

All submissions must be formatted as Microsoft Word documents, double spaced in 12-point Times New Roman font. Maximum length for prose pieces is 750 words, and maximum length for poems is three pages.

Please email your submission as a Microsoft Word attachment to greyartgallery@nyu.edu.

In the body of your email, be sure to include your full name, University ID (N# on the back of your valid ID card), NYU school and department or program, and anticipated date of graduation (do not include any of this information in your submission document).

UNDERGRADUATES: In the email’s subject line, write: “Taking Shape Writing Prize Submission: Undergrad.”

GRADUATE STUDENTS: In the email’s subject line, write: “Taking Shape Writing Prize Submission: Graduate Student.”

About the Exhibition

Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s was on view at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery from January 14 through March 13, 2020, closing early in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the Grey posted on our website an image of every work in the exhibition, complete gallery texts, and numerous other features.                          (Continues on next page.)

Visit the Grey’s Taking Shape exhibition webpage for more on the exhibition and to access  the following resources:

Link: https://greyartgallery.nyu.edu/exhibition/taking-shape-arab-abstraction-1950s-1980s-barjeel-january-14-april-4-2020/

·      Images and gallery texts for all works in the show

·      Virtual guided tour of the exhibition

·      Exhibition checklist and label text

·      Introductory chapter from the exhibition catalogue

·      Interview with Suheyla Takesh, co-curator of the exhibition

·      Video recordings of 3-part webinar series on “Taking Shape”

·      Blogposts on artists in the show

—

“SWAHILI MOSQUES BETWEEN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN”

Stéphane Pradines, Aga Khan University, London

Wednesday, September 16th, 12:30pm

[Online] Silsila Fall 2020 Lecture Series, Islam in Africa: Material Histories

Mosque in Mwana, 14th c., Northern Kenya.
Copyright © 2001, Pradines. All rights reserved.

The lecture will present the archaeological works carried out by the author and his teams during the past twenty years in East Africa, on the sites of Gedi in Kenya, Kilwa, Songo Mnara, Sanje ya Kati and Kua in Tanzania and Dembeni in Mayotte (Comoros). Two important themes will be developed, first the diffusion of ideas, people and material cultures in the Indian Ocean; second the role of Islam in the building of maritime regional identities, international trading networks and urbanization of the Swahili coast. Stéphane Pradines is an archaeologist and Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) in London. He was the director of the excavations of the Walls of Cairo and many other excavations in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros) and the Indian Ocean (Maldives, Pakistan). He is a specialist of Indian Ocean trade and material culture of war.Date: Wednesday, September 16thTime: 12:30-2:30pm Location: OnlineThis event will take place as a live Webinar at 12:30pm ET (New York time). To register as an attendee, please use the following link: https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Vl_j2oeETay88Bg0yVzSJg Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.Silsila: Center for Material Histories is an NYU center dedicated to material histories of the Islamicate world. Each semester we hold a thematic series of lectures and workshops, which are open to the public. Details of the Center can be found at: http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/silsila.html

Copyright © 2020 NYU Silsila, All rights reserved.