The Fifth Biennial Conference of the Historians of Islamic Art Association celebrates the European ‘roots’ of the study of the arts that fall under the cultural umbrella of Islam, and the formation of the important early collections and exhibitions that launched its scholarship. Those early, mostly connoisseurial categories of regional types and styles – the “Moresque”, Persian painting, Turkish tiles, Indian decorative arts – formed the foundations from which universalizing narratives of “Islamic” arts emerged, especially in the period after the Second World War. Some fifty years later, we are witnessing a resurgence of the study of regional specificities, augmented with deeper research into the diverse facets of any given locality or artistic form, and a greater commitment to the linguistic and cultural particularities that shaped the arts, architecture and archaeology in a specific locale. Rigorous application of trans-disciplinary research strategies have contributed to the deepening of our understanding of the arts of Islam in local terms, and have allowed us to embrace broader historical trajectories to include the modern and contemporary in our field.
The conference is organised by Sussan Babaie and The Historians of Islamic Art Association.
The conference program consists of 6 panels, an object-handling session. In addition, there are four keynote speakers:
Finbarr Barry Flood, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University: Prescriptive piety as material practice in Islamic art.
Jeremy Johns, University of Oxford: ‘Fings ain’t wot they oughto be’: making things & the art history of early & medieval Islamic societies.
Talinn Grigor, University of California Davis: Modernism as (a)politics: religious minorities and the discourse on architecture in Pahlavi Iran.
The Courtauld Institute uses several local hotels, so if you are looking to book a room for the conference, we suggest looking at the following: https://www.imperialhotels.co.uk/en/
http://www.goodenough.ac.uk/visitors/visitor-accommodation
HIAA members get a discounted rate (£25) but must produce HIAA membership cards on registration.
