#  HAA 128 - Topics in Arabic Art and Culture: Art of the Qur'an 

 





 Semester:   Spring 

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 Year offered:  2025 

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 Link: [Course Website](https://courses.my.harvard.edu/psp/courses/EMPLOYEE/EMPL/h/?tab=HU_CLASS_SEARCH…) 

 

 

 

 David Roxburgh

 A problem-oriented inquiry into Arabic art and culture (from the formation of Islam through the late medieval period), focusing on regions circling the Mediterranean, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Levant, as well as the Middle East. Materials (the book, painting, portable arts, epigraphy, architecture) and geographic focus vary. Themes also change, but include relations between art and literature, aesthetics, vision and perception, courtly culture, the rise of a mercantile patron class, and cultural continuities and resurgences. The art of the Qur’an is the topic in 2025. The seminar studies divine speech through its physical embodiments with an emphasis on medium, materiality, calligraphy, and codicology, spanning the early Islamic period up to the 1500s. Extensive use will be made of collections on campus.



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Spring 2025 ](/classterm/spring-2025)
- [ undergraduate, graduate ](/classtype/undergraduate-graduate)