Bard Graduate Center is a research institute for advanced, interdisciplinary study of diverse material worlds. We support the innovative scholarship of our faculty and students as well as resident fellows, guest curators and artists, and visiting speakers.

Photo by Fresco Arts Team.

Our Public Humanities + Research department focuses on making scholarly work widely available and accessible through the coordination of the fellowship program and public programming that combines academic research with exhibition-related events. Across the institution—from the classroom to the gallery, from publications to this website—we utilize digital media to facilitate and share original research. This section outlines current programming and provides a repository for past scholarly content.

Fustat, founded as a military encampment by the armies of the Arab conquests in the seventh century, served as the center of a flourishing global network of trade that connected the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. After the Fatimid caliphate moved from modern-day Tunisia to Egypt in 969 and founded Cairo (al-Qahira) as its new capital city two miles northeast of Fustat, both cities continued to thrive. As the commercial center of the powerful Fatimid empire, Fustat’s craftsmen competed in the production of luxury products including lusterware, elaborate textiles and carved ivory objects, which were then carried by traders and diplomats through the Mediterranean and beyond. This workshop explores the relationships between the Fatimids and their subjects and rivals in Egypt and in the broader Islamic and Mediterranean worlds. Papers will examine the ideological bases and political practices of the Fatimid state, as well as the widely dispersed objects, motifs and techniques associated with the Fatimid caliphate that became the courtly style par excellence of the medieval Mediterranean.

Symposium Sponsored by the Trehan Research Fund for Islamic Art and Material Culture.

9:00 – 9:30 am	Breakfast
9:30am	Abigail Krasner Balbale Assistant Professor, Bard Graduate Center Welcome
9:45am	Paul Walker Lecturer and Deputy Director for Academic Programs, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago “Cairo-Fustat as the Center of an Ideological Empire: The Fatimid Da‘wa in Competition with Its Detractors”
11am	Marina Rustow Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East and Professor of History, Princeton University “The Fatimids and Laissez-Faire”
12:30 – 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30pm	Silvia Armando Independent Scholar “Before and after al-Qahira: Fatimid Ivories between Ifriqiya and Egypt”
3:00 – 3:15 pm	Coffee break
3:15pm	Jeremy Johns Director, Khalili Research Center and Professor of the Art & Archaeology of the Islamic Mediterranean, Oxford University “Fāṭimid Fusṭāt and Norman Palermo”
4:30pm	Avinoam Shalem Riggio Professor of the History of the Arts of Islam, Columbia University Comment
4:45pm	Discussion
5:15pm	Reception