Courtney Lesoon

Courtney Lesoon is a doctoral candidate in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) and the History, Theory & Criticism Section (HTC).

Her dissertation, “Knowledge, Wisdom, and the City: Redefining Early Islamic Urbanism (762–1067 CE),” excavates an early Islamic model of urbanism from al-Fārābī's (d. 950) philosophical treatise Virtuous City. The dissertation theorizes pre-madrasa learning as an urban social system and goes on to argue that early Islamic learners were critical to city administration. The project contributes to Islamic intellectual history, Islamic material histories, and histories of premodern urbanisms.

Courtney's doctoral work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Fulbright-Hays program and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation. In 2021, Courtney was awarded the Margaret B. Ševčenko Prize for “the best unpublished essay written by a junior scholar” for her paper “The Sphero-conical as Apothecary Vessel: An Argument for Dedicated Use.”