Research Seminar in Islamic Art and Archaeology
Convened by Professor Anna Contadini, ReSIA was founded in 2003 in response to the urgent need to promote cutting-edge research in the arts, architecture and archaeology of the Islamic lands. Against the familiar landscape of the evening lecture that presents art-historical themes in a traditional, largely Eurocentric form and does not stimulate critical debate, ReSIA seeks to re-examine current orthodoxies, often through a decolonising lens, and to disseminate fresh ideas.
From the beginning, ReSIA has encouraged new approaches to research, embracing not only historical alongside contemporary topics but also intellectual history. It provides a platform for young as well as established researchers and has often bridged the gap between history and art by bringing together historians of art and artists.
ReSIA has grown over the years and now attracts a wide, international audience that engages in lively debate during the question session that follows the presentation. ReSIA now has its own YouTube playlist, which can be accessed by clicking on this link.
Previous Events in this series
Mobility on the borders of the Empire: Shared Spaces of the Caravanserais in Ottoman Balkans
Darka Bilić
17 March 2022, Virtual Event, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMInterpretations of Objects from the Islamic Lands during the Age of Enlightenment
Isabelle Dolezalek and Mattia Guidetti
3 March 2022, Virtual Event, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMCartobiography: an experiential mapping of the world
María Gómez López
3 February 2022, Virtual Event, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMNaẓar: The Question of Vision in Islamic Art and Architecture
Samer Akkach
20 January 2022, Virtual Event, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PMMaximilian Hartmuth
16 December 2021, Virtual Event, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMThe King and I: Qajar Portrait Miniatures
Natasha Morris
2 December 2021, Virtual Event, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMSohelia Sokhanvari
25 November 2021, Virtual Event, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMCANCELLED - Early Qur’ans from Archives of Sacred Texts
Alba Fedeli, Universität Hamburg
14 May 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMCANCELLED - Portrait miniatures of the Qajar kings
Natasha Morris, Courtauld Institute of Art
23 April 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMHumorous Art Practices in the Contemporary Middle East: Reacting to Cultural Formulation
Hamid Keshmirshekan, Senior Teaching Fellow, SOAS/Barakat Senior Fellow, KRC, Oxford University
5 March 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMUmayyad Art Re-examined: A New Attitude to Images and Discourse in Visuality
Dr Valerie Gonzalez, Research Associate, SOAS
27 February 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMCANCELLED: New findings from the glass collection in the Islamic Museum Malaysia
Tanja Tolar, Senior Teaching Fellow, SOAS
6 February 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMEmbroidery and the Intifada: dress and resistance in Palestine
Rachel Dedman, Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East, Victoria and Albert Museum
30 January 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMBuilding Islamic Ifrīqiya: urbanism, aesthetics and the
Corisande Fenwick
16 January 2020, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMWhen Paper was Gold: Gift-Giving, Material Reuse, and the Timurid Book Arts
Yusen Yu
5 December 2019, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMRecent Research on Illustrated Manuscripts of the Dala’il al-khayrat from Southeast Asia
Farouk Yahya
21 November 2019, Russell Square: College Buildings, Room 4426, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMLooking Less, Seeing More: The Making of the Albukhary Gallery of Islamic Art
William Greenwood
9 May 2019, Brunei Gallery, B102, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMRethinking about Injuid painting school: Inju style in context
Dr Roxana Zenhari
25 April 2019, Brunei Gallery, B102, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMDr Rosalind A. Wade Haddon
14 March 2019, Brunei Gallery, B102, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMReflexes of al-Andalus: Islamic glass in the Iberian Peninsula
Jorge de Juan
7 March 2019, Brunei Gallery, B102, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMWithout Name But Numbers & Data
Hanaa Malallah
24 January 2019, Brunei Gallery, B102, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PMRe-examining the Genesis of Mughal Painting
Valerie Gonzalez
3 May 2018, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMIlluminated Islamic Manuscripts of Konya 1270s-1330s
Cailah Jackson
26 April 2018, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMDigitising the past: The Growing Archival movement in Amman
Jessica Rose Holland
22 March 2018, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMA Corpus of Thirteenth-Century Brick Rum Seljuq Minarets
Richard Piran McClary
8 February 2018, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMFurther New Perspectives on Qusayr ‘Amra
Nadia Ali
25 January 2018, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMInhabited Architecture: A Pervasive Motif in Medieval Art and Modern Theory
Anthony Cutler, Evan Pugh University Professor in Art History, Penn State University
Inhabited Architecture: A Pervasive Motif in Medieval Art and Modern Theory
Anthony Cutler, Evan Pugh University Professor in Art History, Penn State University
Convened by Professor Anna Contadini
12 May 2016, Brunei Gallery, B104, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMArthur von Gwinner and the Alhambra cupola in Berlin
Anna McSweeney
7 May 2015, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMFederica Gigante
23 April 2015, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMSyria at the Royal Academy: The Blockbuster that Never Was
Warwick Ball
14 January 2015, Brunei Gallery, B104, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PMThe Courtauld's Guro Loom Pulley: Craft at a crossroads in West Africa
Niamh Collard (Department of Anthropology & Sociology, SOAS)
Convened by Professor Anna Contadini in collaboration with the Courtauld Gallery
12 June 2014, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMThe Cordoba Caliphate through Madinat Al-Zahra: from its proclamation to its consolidation
Antonio Vallejo Triano (former director of the Madinat Al-Zahra Architectural Complex, 1985 to 2013)
Department of the History of Art & Archaeology, SOAS, in collaboration with Casa Árabe and the Victoria and Albert Museum
5 June 2014, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMEduardo Manzano Moreno (CSIC, Madrid)
Department of the History of Art & Archaeology, SOAS, in collaboration with Casa Árabe and the Victoria and Albert Museum
22 May 2014, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMPopular Medicine and Sacred Geography: 16th-Century Illustrations to Tusi's ‘Aja’ib al-Makhluqat
Dr. Bilha Moor (Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellow)
8 May 2014, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMThoughts About the Poetics of Space in Persian Paintings
Rachel Milstein (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
1 May 2014, Brunei Gallery, B102, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PMAfrican Rock Crystal: Production and Trade between the 9th-12th centuries
Stéphane Pradines (Associate Professor, Aga Khan University)
16 January 2014, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMFigural Sculpture in Mshatta. A Neglected Topic
Jens Kröger, Museum für Islamische Kunst im Pergamonmuseum, Berlin
12 December 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMMosque and Church: Arabic Inscriptions at Shivta in the Early Islamic Period
Bilha Moor
31 October 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMSixteenth Century Bindings in the Western Islamic World
Nuria Martínez-de-Castilla-Muñoz (UCM)
24 October 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMAn inquiry into the challenges and possibilities of reviving the ‘dying’ art of Asir (Saudi Arabia)
Haifa al-Hababi
2 May 2013, Brunei Gallery, B320, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PMThe Timurid Kalila wa Dimna in the Gulistan Library
Massoumeh Assemi
25 April 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMGlobular Glass Hookah Bases in 17th and 18th century India
Tara Desjardins
21 March 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMA Spanish lustreware dish from the Courtauld Gallery
Tanja Tolar
Convened by Professor Anna Contadini, in collaboration with the Courtauld Gallery.
14 March 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMThree papers on Islamic Art in the 19th Century
Convened by Professor Anna Contadini
Anna McSweeney, The Afterlife of the Alhambra. Architectural revivals in the 19th century Middle East
Melanie Gibson, Colouring the surface: a taste for 'Persian' tiles in English domestic architecture, 1860-1910
George Manginis, Iznik in Athens: Ottoman-style tile revetments on inter-war public buildings in Greece
Seminar on the Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion
This seminar is intended to further our understanding of these bronze objects by sharing the results of the scientific analyses and the historical and art-historical investigations that have taken place in the last ten years.
14 February 2013, Russell Square: College Buildings, Khalili Lecture Theatre, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PMGlass in Turkish-Islamic Tradition: An Insight to the Beykoz Glass Factory
Dr. Ergün Lafli, Dokuz Eylul Universitesi
17 January 2013, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMIn-Sung Kim Han and Caroline Rumpf
In-Sung Kim Han and Caroline Rumpf
Islamic Material Culture in Medieval Korea (8th century - 1427) (In-Sung Kim Han)
Evolution of contemporary Iranian Art after the Reform Period of Muhammed Khatami, through the analysis of paintings and sculptural works by Farhad Moshiri, Bita Fayyazi and Rokni Haerizadeh (Caroline Rumpf)
10 May 2012, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 8:00 PMJennifer Scarce
3 May 2012, Brunei Gallery, B111, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PMRevisiting Ḥadīth Bayāḍ wa Riyāḍ (ms. Vat. ar. 368) - New perspectives
Dr. Arianna D'Ottone
8 December 2011, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMThe life of textiles: Ottoman silks and velvets in the use of the Orthodox Church
Nikolaos Vryzidis
24 March 2011, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMSami De Giosa, Sultan Qaytbay and the artistic revival in Cairo during the late 15th century
10 March 2011, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMPower on paper: Illustrations and illumination in Malay magic and divination manuscripts
Farouk Yahya
2 December 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMDress and Luxury Textiles in the paintings of the wooden ceilings of the Capella Palatina in Palermo
Francesca Manuela Anzelmo
25 November 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMIslamic Pottery at the Fitzwilliam Museum: recording and researching the collection
Dr. Rebecca Bridgman, Fitzwilliam Institute, Cambridge
13 May 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMThe evolution of mosque design in the Early Cape of Good Hope
Phoebe Hirsch, PhD Candidate SOAS
6 May 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMTanja Tolar, PhD Candidate SOAS
29 April 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMKatherine Hughes, PhD Candidate SOAS
25 March 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMRichard Terrell Langstaff, PhD Candidate SOAS
11 March 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMMediterranean style? Some thoughts on earrings in medieval southern Italy and its Islamic neighbours
Dr. Tehmina Goskar, Research Associate, Southampton University
4 March 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMGod is the Victor. Polemical inscriptions in medieval Andalucia
Dr. Tom Nickson, History of Art Department, Vanbrugh College, University of York
25 February 2010, Brunei Gallery, B111, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMRuins Technique in Contemporary Iraqi Art
Hanaa Mal-Allah
Research Seminar in Islamic Art and Archaeology
30 April 2009, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMGeometry, Illumination and Beyond
Anita Chowdry
23 April 2009, Brunei Gallery, B104, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMThe Stylistic Roots of the Alcazar of Sevilla