Conference Location:
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz / Max-Planck-Institut Via Giuseppe Giusti 38
50121 Firenze
Italy

Conference Description:

The research project “Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions,” which is supported by the Max-Planck-Institute and run at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (2007-2012) by Professor Avinoam Shalem, has organized a three-day conference that aims to bring together approximately thirty distinguished scholars whose work explores the varied ways in which the Prophet Muhammad has been constructed and imagined through both European eyes and within Islamic traditions.

Conference Program:

Thursday, 16 July 2009

9.00 Welcoming Remarks
Gerhard WOLF, Alessandro NOVA, and Avinoam SHALEM

The Prophet Recovered
Chairman: Avinoam SHALEM

9.15 Christiane GRUBER
“The Rose of the Prophet: Interstitial Images of Muhammad in Islamic Art”

9.45 Yorgos DEDES
“A Turkish Requiem? Süleyman Çelebi’s Mevlid and the Drawing of Muslim-Orthodox Christian Boundaries”

Coffee 10.15-10.45

10.45 Suleiman Ali MOURAD
“The Full Moon Rose in Our Midst: The Veneration of Muhammad in Medieval Islamic Literature”

11.15 Brannon WHEELER
“Collecting the Dead Body of the Prophet Muhammad: Hair, Nails, Sweat and Spit”

Encountered
Chairman: Gerhard WOLF

11.45 Barbara ROGGEMA
“The Syriac Sira?: Re-Evaluating Syriac Writings about Muhammad”

12.15 Kenneth Baxter WOLF
“Counterhistory in the Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad”

Lunch 12.45-14.30

14.30 José MARTÍNEZ GÁZQUEZ
“La figura de Mahoma en el Corpus Islamolatinum”
(“The Figure of Muhammad in the Prologues of Medieval Latin Translations of the Qur’an”)

15.00 Reuven FIRESTONE
“Meanings of Muhammad in Pre-Modern Jewish Literatures”

Coffee 15.30-16.00

Narrated
Chairman: Michele Bacci

16.00 Robert HILLENBRAND
“Muhammad as Warrior Prophet: Images from the World History of Rashid al-Din”

16.30 Maria Vittoria FONTANA
“Muhammad and an ‘Adoration of the Magi’ in the Gulbenkian Anthology of 813/1411”

Friday, 17 July 2009

Visualized
Chairman: Claus-Peter HAASE

9.15 Debra Higgs STRICKLAND
“Meanings of Muhammad in Later Medieval Art”

9.45 Inés MONTEIRA ARIAS
“Les musulmans idolâtres et l´adoration de Mahomet: Une iconographie contre l´Islam dans la sculpture Romane”
(“Muslim Idolaters and Muhammad's Adoration: Anti-Islamic Iconography in Romanesque Sculpture")

Coffee 10.15-10.45

10.45 Michelina DI CESARE
“Reading the Bible through Glass: The Image of Muhammad in Sainte-Chapelle”

11.15 Suzanne Conklin AKBARI
“Ambivalence and Assimilation: Muhammad in the Divine Comedy”

11.45 Thomas E. BURMAN
“A European Author Portrait of Muhammad and Medieval Latin Traditions of Qur'an Reading”

Lunch 12.15-14.00

14.00 Larry SILVER
“Mohammed, Maximilian and Mandeville: Constructing a Muslim Nemesis”

14.30 Ulrike ILG
“Writing versus Showing: Religious Polemics and Visual Realism in a late 16th-Century Biography of the Prophet Muhammad”

Saturday, 18 July 2009

Reformed and Revised
Chairman: Angelika NEUWIRTH

9.15 Hartmut BOBZIN
“Mohammed als ‘falscher Prophet’ im Zeitalter der Reformation”
("‘The False Prophet’ in the Age of Reformation”)

9.45 Matthew DIMMOCK
“Deceiving with Painted Words: ‘Mahomet’ in Reformation England”

10.15 John TOLAN
“Impostor or Lawgiver? Muhammad through European Eyes in the 17th and 18th Centuries”

Coffee 10.45-11.15

Appropriated, Applauded
Chairman: Alessandro NOVA

11.15 Alberto SAVIELLO
“‘In the Desert Prepare the Way for the Lord’: The Depiction of Muhammad in an 1872 Illustrated Spanish Translation of the Qur'an”

11.45 Holly EDWARDS
“Yankee Mahomet”

12.15 David BJELAJAC
“Masonic Fraternalism and Muhammad Among the Lawgivers in Adolph Weinman’s Sculpture Frieze for the United States Supreme Court (1931-1935)”

Lunch 12.45-14.30

The Modern Predicament
Chairman: Christiane GRUBER

14.30 Maryam EKHTIAR
“Infused with Shi'ism: Representations of the Prophet in Qajar Art”

15.00 Pierre CENTLIVRES
“La représentation du Prophète dans l'imagerie populaire iranienne contemporaine”
(“The Depiction of the Prophet in Contemporary Iranian Popular Imagery”)

15.30 Micheline CENTLIVRES-DEMONT
“La famille du Prophète dans l'imagerie populaire contemporaine”
(“The Family of the Prophet in Contemporary Popular Imagery”)

Coffee 16.00-16.30

16.30 Closing Remarks
Renata HOLOD

The conference is open to the public and free of charge. Due to the limited availability of seating, however, we kindly ask that visitors confirm their attendance with Michelina Di Cesare (dicesare@khi.fi.it) or Alberto Saviello (saviello@khi.fi.it).

Other inquiries may be directed to Michelina Di Cesare or Alberto Saviello. For further information about the research project and conference, see:

http://www.khi.fi.it/forschung/projekte/projekte/projekt21/index.html

On behalf of:
Avinoam Shalem
Christiane Gruber
Michelina Di Cesare
Alberto Saviello