The Social Life of Islamic Textiles (fall term 2017)

Before the age of mass production, textiles could be worth their weight in gold. Their value dwarfed the containers used to transport them and the houses whose walls they adorned, and signified the social standing of the people who wore them.

This course examines the textiles produced in the lands of Islam (from the Oxus to the Iberian Peninsula) from the seventh through seventeenth centuries, following their distribution, adaptation and circulation in lands distant from their origin. We will trace the networks of materials and techniques that produced objects from humble linen sheets to rich tapestry-woven silk curtains and will follow individual objects as they moved, whether as commodity, booty or gift, into new cultural zones, often changing form and function along the way.

Following Arjun Appadurai's concept of "the social life of things", we will use textiles in motion to illuminate the people and cultures that surrounded them.

This webinar takes place weekly from 4.00 to 6.00 pm CET.

1) Monday, September 11, 2017 – "Matter, Meaning and Social Lives"

Readings:

• Golombek, Lisa. “The Draped Universe of Islam.” In Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World: Papers from a Colloquium in Memory of Richard Ettinghausen, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2–4 April 1980, edited by Priscilla P. Soucek, 25–38. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.
• Appadurai, Arjun, ed. “Introduction: commodities and the politics of value.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, 3-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 
• Serjeant, R. B. "Material for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest." Ars Islamica 9 (1942): 54-92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4515591.

2) Monday, September 18, 2017 – "On a Microhistorical approach to Textiles, and on the question of 'reuse'"
Guest Lecture by Dr. María Judith Feliciano

Readings:

• Feliciano, María Judith. “Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings? A Reassessment of Andalusi Textiles in Christian Contexts in Thirteenth-century Castilian Life and Ritual.” In Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile, edited Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi, 101-31. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
• Feliciano, María Judith. “Medieval Textiles in Iberia: Studies for a New Approach.” In Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Honor of Renata Holod, edited by David J. Roxburgh, 46-65. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
• Batigne, René, and Louisa Bellinger. "The Significance and Technical Analysis of Ancient Textiles as Historical Documents." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 97, no. 6 (1953): 670-80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3149282. 

3) Monday, September 25, 2017 – "Robes of Honor and Tiraz"

Readings:

• Stillman, Yedida K., Sanders, Paula and Rabbat, Nasser. “Ṭirāz.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs et al.  Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960–2005.
• Golombek, Lisa and V. Gervers. “Tiraz Fabrics in the Royal Ontario Museum.” In Studies in Textile History in Memory of Harold P. Burnham, edited by V. Gervers, 82-125. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1977.
• Kerner, Jaclynne J. "Embroidering History: A ṭirāz Textile from the Reign of Al-Muqtadir Billāh." Artibus Asiae 67, no. 1 (2007): 13-24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25261867.
• Liu, Xinru. "Silks and Religions in Eurasia, C. A.D. 600-1200." Journal of World History 6, no. 1 (1995): 25-48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078618. [Skim the first part and focus on “The Islamic Circle,” pp. 42-47.]

4) Monday, October 2, 2017 – "Circulation and Trade – Indian Ocean and Trans-Eurasian Networks"

Readings:

• Bier, Carol. "Patterns in Time and Space: Technologies of Transfer and the Cultural Transmission of Mathematical Knowledge across the Indian Ocean." Ars Orientalis 34 (2004): 172-94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4629613.
• Burke, Katherine Strange, and Donald Whitcomb. "Quṣeir Al-Qadīm in the Thirteenth Century: A Community and Its Textiles." Ars Orientalis 34 (2004): 82-97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4629609.
• Mackie, Louise W. "Toward an Understanding of Mamluk Silks: National and International Considerations." Muqarnas 2 (1984): 127-46. www.jstor.org/stable/1523061.

5) Monday, October 9, 2017 – Preliminary research presentations

For BGC Students: Abstract of final paper or project due. The abstract should be 150-200 words and should indicate the major sources (objects, primary and/or secondary textual materials) that will be consulted. Please also prepare a short presentation (5 minutes) with images to show to your classmates. We will discuss as a group and will brainstorm where to find further resources.

Webinar students are not required to attend but may watch presentations and provide comments if they desire.

6) Monday, October 16, 2017 – "Burial"
With guest lecture on Fatimid Tiraz by Prof. Jochen Sokoly

Readings:

• Sokoly, Jochen. “Between Life and Death: The Funerary Context of Ṭirāz Textiles,” and "Towards a Model of Early Islamic Textile Institutions in Egypt." In Islamische Textilkunst des Mittelalters: Aktuelle Probleme, 71-78. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1997.
• Sokoly, Jochen. “Textiles and Identity.” In A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, edited by Finbarr Barry Flood and Gulru Necipoglu. Hoboken, N.J. and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017.
• Colburn, Kathrin. "Materials and Techniques of Late Antique and Early Islamic Textiles Found in Egypt." In Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th–9th Century, edited by Helen C. Evans and Brandie Ratliff. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. See on MetPublications.

7) Monday, October 23, 2017 – "Circulation and Trade – Mediterranean Ocean Networks"

Readings:

• Hoffman, Eva R. “Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian Interchange from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century.” Art History 24 (2001): 17–50.
• Jacoby, David. "Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslim World, and the Christian West." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004): 197-240.
• Owen, Mariam Rosser. “Islamic objects in Christian contexts: relic translation and modes of transfer in medieval Iberia.” Art In Translation, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 2015), special issue: ‘Translation and Hispanic Visual Culture’, 39-64.
• Heller, Sarah Grace. “Fashion in French Crusade Literature: Desiring Infidel Textiles.” In Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images, edited by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet E. Snyder, 103-119. New York; Houndmills, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

8) Monday, October 30, 2017 – "Eastern Textiles in Western Churches – Case Study: The Shroud of Saint Josse"
Guest Lecture by Prof. Aleksandr Naymark

NOTE: class takes place from 3.00 to 5.00 pm (CET)

Readings:

• Michailidis, Melanie. "Samanid Silver and Trade along the Fur Route." Medieval Encounters 18, no. 4/5 (November 2012): 315-338. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
• Muthesius, Anna. “Silks and Saints: The Rider and Peacock Silks from the Relics of St Cuthbert.” In St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200, edited by Gerald Bonner, David W. Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe, 343–47. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1989.
• Goehring, Margaret. “Textile Contact Relics.” In Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, 740-2. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

9) Monday, November 6, 2017 – "Gifts and Diplomacy"

Readings:

• Enamorado, Virgilio Martínez. "Fāṭimid Ambassadors in Bobastro: Changing Religious and Political Allegiances in the Islamic West." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52, no. 2 (2009): 267-300. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25651165.
• Book of gifts and rarities = Kitab al-hadāyā wa al-tuḥaf: selections compiled in the fifteenth century from an eleventh-century manuscript on gifts and treasures. Translated from the Arabic by Ghāda al-Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī; forewords by Oleg Grabar and Annemarie Schimmel. Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University by Harvard University Press, 1996. [Selections]
• Muhanna, Elias. “The Sultan's New Clothes: Ottoman-Mamluk Gift Exchange in the 15th Century." Muqarnas 27 (2010): 189-207.

10) Monday, November 13, 2017 – "Cloth of Gold and Connections across Mongol Eurasia – Case study: Abu Sa’id textile"
Guest Lecture by Prof. Markus Ritter

Readings:

• Ritter, Markus. “Cloth of Gold from West Asia in a Late Medieval European Context: The Abū Saʿīd Textile in Vienna—Princely Funeral, and Cultural Transfer.” In Oriental Silks in Medieval Europe, edited by Juliane von Fircks and Regula Schorta, 231-251. Riggisberg: Abbegg-Siftung, 2016.
• Watt, James C. Y. and Anne E. Wardwell. “Luxury-Silk Weaving under the Mongols.” In When Silk was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles, 126-141. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997.
• Denney, Joyce. “Mongol Dress in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.” In The World of Kubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, edited by James C. Y. Watt, 74-83. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

Recommended reading:                                                  

• Allsen, Thomas T. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. [On reserve]
• Ritter, Markus. “Kunst mit Botschaft: Der Gold-Seide-Stoff für den Ilchan Abū Saʿīd von Iran (Grabgewand Rudolfs IV. in Wien) – Rekonstruktion, Typus, Repräsentationsmedium.” In Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie, edited by Markus Ritter and Lorenz Korn, 105-135. Wiesbaden: Reichert. (http://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/47816/1/Ritter_2010c_Gold-Seide-Stoff.pdf) [Recommended if you read German]

11) Monday, November 20, 2017 – Visit to Cooper Hewitt 

This visit is open to all BGC students and to any webinar participants who are able to join us in NYC. We’ll be viewing a number of textiles that the museum will be taking out of storage for us to see.

Assignment: BGC students, working in pairs, should select one of the textiles we will be viewing (list to be made available closer to the date), research its provenance, as much of its biography as is possible, and be prepared to present it to their classmates.

Readings that may helpful:

• Shepherd, Dorothy G. “The Hispano-Islamic Textiles in the Cooper Union Collection,” Chronicle of the Museum for the Arts of Decoration of the Cooper Union 1, no. 10 (Dec. 1943).
• May, Florence L. Silk Textiles of Spain: 8th to 15th Century. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1957.

12) Monday, November 27, 2017 – Final presentations

Prerequisites and Application Process

The only prerequisite is good spoken and written English. Further, all webinar participants will need a computer and a stable internet connection.

This course will be part of the International Islamic Material Culture Webinar Initiative, and will be a hybrid seminar/webinar, with participants from Bard Graduate Center joined virtually by participants from around the world. Graduate students and scholars working in the field are welcome to apply to join the webinar. Please send a letter of interest and a CV by August 1, 2017.

Assignments and Expectations

Regular attendance and participation are required. Please email abigail.balbale@bgc.bard.edu in advance if you anticipate missing class. The readings will be available on the course wiki (a password will be sent to all participants by e-mail), and students are expected to have completed the readings before each class.

Webinar participants are expected to complete the assigned reading and be prepared to discuss it every week. The only other requirement of the webinar is writing a brief (750-1500 word) biography of a textile, to be posted on our course wiki. This may be completed at any point in the semester. A list of potential textiles for biographies is on the wiki – feel free to add to this list and/or to choose items not on it.