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Date
Time
6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue
Brunei Gallery
Room
Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre

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Professor Scott Redford

In medieval Islam, the written word assumed many functions and many meanings.  In some cases, writing functioned not in opposition to images, but in relation to them. In other cases, writing combined with images and designs. In yet others, writing, or signs resembling writing, served an apotropaic function. This lecture looks at the many functions that the Arabic alphabet assumed in the medieval period, considering it both traditionally as a bearer of content and meaning, as well as part of systems of graphemes that carried other meanings and combined with other visual systems.

Scott Redford is Nasser D. Khalili Chair in the Art and Archaeology of Islam, Department of the History of Art and Archaeology. His most recent book is Legends of Authority: The 1215 Seljuk Inscriptions of Sinop Citadel, Turkey  (Istanbul, 2014).

Organiser: External Relations and Development

Contact email: events@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: +44 (0) 207 898 4013

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