By challenging essentialist questioning of Islamic urbanism, this course considers the inter-animated and complex web of forces that drive cities forward by identifying repertoires of underlying logic. Through a deep and historically situated reading of Medieval Mecca, Medina, Damascus, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba, we will map and encode history on the urban scale to reveal what makes a city "Islamic." Visual mapping skill cultivation for communication purposes (both digital and analogue) will be taught throughout to enhance understandings of urban complexity in rich historical contexts.
By challenging essentialist questioning of Islamic urbanism, this course considers the inter-animated and complex web of forces that drive cities forward by identifying repertoires of underlying logic. Through a deep and historically situated reading of Medieval Mecca, Medina, Damascus, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba, we will map and encode history on the urban scale to reveal what makes a city "Islamic." Visual mapping skill cultivation for communication purposes (both digital and analogue) will be taught throughout to enhance understandings of urban complexity in rich historical contexts.
