Can one divide human reality, as indeed human reality seems to be genuinely divided, into clearly different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, even races, and survive the consequences humanly?"

- Edward Said, Orientalism, 45 

The locus of intellectual courage isn’t factuality, it’s oppositionality—an interior relation of conviction rather than an external condition of falsifiability
- FT, NYR Online, Aug 19, 2023

This seminar explores the politics of representation as a central concern in the production and dissemination of knowledge about cultures.  It examines how political, cultural, historical, ideological, and religious forces not only shape but often determine the ways in which knowledge is produced, codified, and visually or textually represented — and how, in turn, such knowledge reconfigures those very forces.

At the core of the seminar lies the concept of Orientalism, understood not merely as a body of scholarship or a mode of artistic expression, but as a discursive and institutional formation that evolved over centuries of interaction — frequently asymmetrical and fraught — between the “West” and the “Orient.”

Students will engage critically with a range of historical episodes, analyzing their textual, visual, architectural, theoretical, and institutional legacies to show how representations of the Islamic world were constructed, circulated, and normalized within Western epistemologies. At the same time, it considers how these representations were received, contested, internalized, or reappropriated within Islamic societies, thereby shaping the modalities of modern self-representation.

Through these inquiries, the seminar aims to foster a historically grounded and theoretically informed understanding of representation as a field of power. It interrogates claims of empirical neutrality in the humanities and social sciences, contending instead that all acts of representation — however scholarly or aesthetic in form — are embedded within shifting structures of authority, legitimacy, and imagination.

Research paper required. Open to qualified undergraduates. 

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

This course offers a wide review of the history of Islamic architecture, tracing fifteen centuries of development across three continents — Asia, Africa, and Europe. Beginning with the House of the Prophet in Medina in the 7th century and culminating with the skyline of contemporary Dubai, the course presents architecture as both a material record and a cultural expression of the historical conditions in which Islam was formed, practiced, and continually reinterpreted.

Each session centers on a city, monument, or building type, while keeping sight of the larger narrative that links diverse regions and periods into a coherent story.  Lectures analyze form, construction techniques, materials, style, ornament, and decoration, as well as the social, religious, political, and cultural frameworks that shaped architectural production.  Particular emphasis is placed on the role of patronage and on the ways architecture served as a stage for identity, power, and community.

Cross-cultural exchanges are examined throughout, from the absorption of Late Antique traditions in early Islam to encounters with the West during the colonial and postcolonial eras. The course concludes by exploring the revival and reinvention of Islamic architecture in the modern age of nation-building, globalization, and rapid urban development.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

4.603 UG / 4.604 G

Examines modern architecture, art, and design in the context of the political, economic, aesthetic, and cultural changes that occurred in the twentieth century. Presents foundational debates about social and technological aspects of modern architecture and the continuation of those debates into contemporary architecture. Incorporates varied techniques of historical and theoretical analysis to interpret exemplary objects, buildings, and cities of modernity.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

Introduction to the history and interpretation of western art in a global context that explores painting, graphic arts and sculpture from the 15th century to the present. Engages diverse methodological perspectives to examine changing conceptions of art and the artist, and to investigate the plural meaning of artworks within the larger contexts of culture and history.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus