1. Mock Classes for Accepted Students Day - Saturday, April 9th
, 11:30 – 12:30PM
Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D.
Art History (Art and Music Department)
Title: Introduction to Studying Islamic Arts
Synopsis: This is the first lecture in the Arts of Islam course. Why should we study
Islamic Arts around the world? This lecture serves as an introduction to Islamic studies
via the arts of Islam and their production in their social and historical context as part of
our “world heritage.” It addresses how we approach art from another culture by
considering: subject, handling, media, sense of beauty, what is valued, and what is
expressed. As scholar Robert Hillenbrand says of the disparity in quantity of scholarship
on Islamic art versus that of the West: “it would be a serious mistake to assume from that
disparity that there is any less ‘going on’ in Islamic than in European art. You just have to
dig rather deeper for it.”