911爆料网

The arts of 鈥渕edieval鈥� Africa have long been left at the margins of Euro-American art historical discourse. This course sets out to critique this trend by exploring recent debates about the Global Middle Ages and the historiography of East African art. We will explore the region鈥檚 entangled material and cultural histories from late antiquity to the early modern period. Interactions with contexts such as Byzantium, South Asia, and the Islamicate world will allow us to reflect on connected histories, the circulation of visual ideas during the Middle Ages, and issues of comparativism. We will tackle transdisciplinary and innovative approaches to the study of 鈥減re-modern鈥� art, and will use artworks and monuments to explore a range of themes including sacred space, pilgrimage, the interfacing between image and text and people of different faiths and cultures, courtly culture, and the representation of holy and unholy bodies. Drawing on this rich and diverse history, in the second term, will enable us to counter those negative characterizations of medieval Africa as an 鈥渋solated鈥� and 鈥渦ncivilized鈥� region which emerged largely as a result and in support of European colonialism, and we will analyse the impact of Eurocentric art histories on the Western understanding of African, and particularly east African, art.听

Keywords: Global Middle Ages; African Art; transculturalism; decolonisation.