Dr. Saud Al-Zaid
Islamic Aesthetics: Production, Curation, and the Sublime
Seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Thursdays, 15-17 h, weekly, starting 18.04.2024, Hardenbergstraße 33, room 004

Registration: https://www.saudalzaid.com/islamicaesthetics

How and why does one perceive an object or sound as being "Islamic" or connected to the Muslim world? How does the world appear in the eyes of Muslims and why would it be different? This seminar explores aesthetics through a deep and rather intimate reflection on identity politics. The point of this reflection is to analyze identity's affect on cultural production, curation, and religiosity/secularity. Through the written word, architecture, art, and music we will explore examples that evoke an Islamic sublime. Yet these examples may have little if anything to do with the religion of Islam at all - or even worse, could be perceived as highly un-Islamic by some Muslims. Students will follow the chain of Islamic history to understand the foundations of that debate. Furthermore, we will analyze basic and often negative reactions towards Islam and Muslims in the west.

This seminar is geared towards two broad groups: firstly, artists with backgrounds in the Muslim world who are grappling with their identity in their artistic practice. Secondly, it is geared to non-Muslims who wish to explore these themes and hope to assist or curate projects without falling into the old patterns of Orientalism or cultural appropriation. We hope with deep reflection comes a deeper sensitivity towards the cultural-political moment we live in today, and a better mutual understanding of our common humanity.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credit points: Class attendance, maximum 2 missed classes.

Saud Al-Zaid is a scholar of Islamic thought and aesthetics. He specializes in the writings of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), a literary critic and ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his aesthetic influence on the Salafis of Central Arabia and the Gulf. Al-Zaid holds degrees in Economics and Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago, a Masters degree in Arab Studies from the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and another Masters in the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He completed his doctorate in Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin entitled “Modernity’s Other: An Intellectual Anthropology of Radical Islamic Thought”. Al-Zaid is based in Berlin and has given public lectures at Re:publica, the Berlin Biennale, Chaos Computer Club Congress and Computerspielemuseum, among others.