Further particulars
The College is looking to establish a three-year Visiting Fellowship in the field of Islamic Art
History, to take effect from 1 October 2014. This aims to attract a mid-career, established
academic with a high profile or proven potential in the field. It will provide an opportunity to
complete or initiate a relevant research project and at the same time to provide teaching that
will help to meet a perceived demand for this subject and encourage a more permanent
provision in the future.
Although there is currently no degree course in Islamic Art, there are pockets of expertise and
existing resources in Cambridge that together provide a sympathetic environment for
research. The most significant of these resources is the Fitzwilliam Museum, which not only
has a very fine collection of Islamic ceramics but also a rich collection of manuscripts from
the Islamic world. The Cambridge University Library has a superb collection of Islamic
manuscripts, many of them illustrated. Several College Libraries also have manuscript
collections. Cambridge is host to The Islamic Manuscript Association (TIMA), which has
strong connections with the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and holds an annual
international conference in Cambridge, as well as workshops on codicology.
The Cambridge ‘Shahnama Project’ has since 1999 promoted research into the Persian arts of
the book through the Shahnama (‘Book of Kings’) by the poet Firdausi. It has held regular
conferences, supported an exhibition in the Fitzwilliam Museum (2010-11), and several
publications. It is now supported by an endowment, with an office and a growing library,
attached to Pembroke College, and conveniently situated opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum,
and has plans for further development.
The Department of Middle Eastern Studies offers a number of first-year introductory courses,
as well as more focused courses covering different periods of Islamic history. In the
Department of History of Art, elements of Islamic art are taught in an introductory survey of
world art course, ‘the objects of art history’; and an appropriate topic could also be offered as
a special subject in the final year course. The Faculty has demonstrated its continuing interest
in fostering knowledge in this field by the choice of scholars to give the prestigious Slade
lecture series in the Lent Term – for example, Professor Robert Hillenbrand in 2008 and
Professor Gulru Necipoglu in 2013.
Pembroke College
Pembroke has a long and distinguished association with Middle Eastern studies and many
resources to promote the field in the twenty-first century. Great Pembroke scholars of the
past, such as E.G. Browne and A.J. Arberry, were holders of the chair of Arabic, as more
recently was Malcolm Lyons. It has the only post-doctoral Research Fellowship in
Cambridge dedicated to the study of the Middle East (the Mubarak Fellowship). The current
Professor of Persian history, Charles Melville, is a Professorial Fellow of Pembroke and the
Shahnama Project (as noted above) is attached to the College. All these developments, both
historical and current, provide a firm basis of expertise and resources to ensure Pembroke’s
commitment to sustaining a leading position in the field of Islamic art.
The Visiting Fellow in Islamic Art
The position is conceived as jointly associated both with the Department of Middle Eastern
Studies and the Department of History of Art, and the Visiting Fellow will be expected to
provide lectures that can be either followed by students in both departments towards their
degrees, or more practically contribute teaching separately to meet the more specific needs of
each department. Enthusiasm for promoting the subject is the chief quality desired of the
Visiting Fellow, but it is intended that there will be regular opportunities to share the results
of the research undertaken by offering teaching in both departments. In History of Art this is
likely to be, in one of the two main teaching terms, via a weekly two-hour lecture and an
hour’s supporting seminar. In Asian and Middle Eastern Studies the expectation is that the
Visiting Fellow will contribute ten hours of teaching, via lecture or seminar, in the course of
the academic year. Details of teaching currently offered in both departments are available on
request.
While the Islamic world – excluding its current very real existence in Europe and America –
stretches from North Africa to Malaysia, the Visiting Scholarship is intended to focus on the
central Islamic lands of the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and north India/Pakistan.
Within this wide area, some of the topics of most interest to both Departments include:
1. Medieval art: Islamic art in historical context; religious and secular art; the impact of
Islamic art and architecture in medieval Western Europe, including textiles, ceramics,
glassware and other decorative arts; the development of research and teaching in medieval
Spanish and Italian art and the art of the Crusader states; the intellectual, scientific and visual
legacy of the Arab world.
2. Post-medieval art: including Ottoman Turkish, Safavid Persian and Mughal Indian work;
links between Islam and Western art and architecture, e.g. through Venice and the Italian city
states; notions of and attitudes towards the exotic in Western European art between the
Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, and the impact of the West on Islamic art
&architecture; Orientalist art, fashions.
3. Manuscripts and decorative arts: the patronage and production of manuscripts;
codicology; the role of manuscripts in the growth of Western scholarship on the Muslim
world, the formation of the great collections of Islamic books, museum studies and art as an
investment.
The successful candidate will be elected to a Bye-Fellowship at Pembroke College. As a ByeFellow he or she will enjoy full Fellows’ dining rights (seven free meals at High Table per
week) and membership of the Senior Parlour. In addition he or she will have access to the
library and office of the Shahnama Project, and the College will provide generous assistance
with accommodation.