Persis Berlekamp
University of Chicago, History of Art, Faculty Member
* A Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Art and Architecture Reviews: The Art Newspaper 229 (November 2011): 80 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 75 (June 2012): 380-382 Choice 49 (August 2012):... more
* A Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Art and Architecture
Reviews:
The Art Newspaper 229 (November 2011): 80
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 75 (June 2012): 380-382
Choice 49 (August 2012): 2262
West 86th 19 (Fall-Winter 2012): 319-24
Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies 42 (2013): 418-26
Journal of Islamic Studies 25 (2014): 68-71
Reviews:
The Art Newspaper 229 (November 2011): 80
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 75 (June 2012): 380-382
Choice 49 (August 2012): 2262
West 86th 19 (Fall-Winter 2012): 319-24
Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies 42 (2013): 418-26
Journal of Islamic Studies 25 (2014): 68-71
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Kitab Suwar al-Kawakib (The Book of the Forms of the Stars) of ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿUmar al-Sufi (d. 986), though based largely on Ptolemy's Almagest, included much original material. In the 20th century, its importance for scholars lay... more
Kitab Suwar al-Kawakib (The Book of the Forms of the Stars) of ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿUmar al-Sufi (d. 986), though based largely on Ptolemy's Almagest, included much original material. In the 20th century, its importance for scholars lay mainly in its attestation of the ways Islamicate scholarship built on classical learning. Now we are finding that it also offers fascinating insights into the complex relationship between seeing and knowing in premodern Islamic book culture. Here, I consider that relationship through analysis of the paired images of the constellation Barshawush (Perseus) from the oldest surviving manuscript, copied and likely also illustrated in 1009–1010 by al-Sufi's son.
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Talismans drawing on the combined iconographies of lions and dragons proliferated on the walls and doors of cities and civic institutions in early thirteenth-century Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia. This article examines them in light of three... more
Talismans drawing on the combined iconographies of lions and dragons proliferated on the walls and doors of cities and civic institutions in early thirteenth-century Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia. This article examines them in light of three different medieval theoretical models, seeking to shed light on why intelligent people in their original milieus might have expected such talismans to have protective power.
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Resumen Tanto para la sociedad medieval como para la moderna, el puente Zangid en Jacirat b. ʿUmar / Cizre / ʿAin Diwar ha estado siempre intimamente ligado a sus aguas. Historicamente, los reflejos de su arco de boveda, los relieves... more
Resumen Tanto para la sociedad medieval como para la moderna, el puente Zangid en Jacirat b. ʿUmar / Cizre / ʿAin Diwar ha estado siempre intimamente ligado a sus aguas. Historicamente, los reflejos de su arco de boveda, los relieves astrologicos y la caligrafia cufica brillaron sobre ellos en una variedad de combinaciones. El conjunto del puente y sus aguas expresaban el amplio simil poetico de la tierra como espejo del cielo, el vinculo casual que la sociedad medieval pensaba que existia entre los ambitos terrestre y celestial, asi como la naturaleza altamente intangible del acceso terrenal a las esferas celestiales. En el mundo actual, esas mismas aguas delimitan la conflictiva linea fronteriza entre los estados de Siria y Turquia. Como resultado, el acceso de los expertos al puente tambien ha sido muy restringido, convertida en una zona peligrosa por los robos y que dificulta nuestro acceso al pasado.Por todo ello, el puente ejemplariza tanto la sofisticada relacion medieval ...
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Research Interests:
Berlekamp, Persis. “Visible Art, Invisible Knowledge,” contribution to the Roundtable: Studying Visual Culture, International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, 3 (2013): 563-565.
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Berlekamp, Persis. “Symmetry, Sympathy, and Sensation: Talismanic Efficacy and Slippery Iconographies in Early 13th C Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia,” Representations 133 (2016): 59-109.
Research Interests: Talismanic Art, Islamic art and architecture, Art History-Seljuk art, Islamic Amulets and Talismans, Cizre, and 5 moreAyyubid Architecture, Medieval Islamic and Turco-Iranian world, Mongol world empire, Seljuk, Mongol, post-Mongol, and Ottoman Anatolia (1200-1500), Comparative empire, frontier, and political culture, and Persian and Ottoman Turkish historical writing
Berlekamp, Persis, Vivienne Lo, and Yidan Wang. “Administering Art, History, and Science in the Mongol Empire: Rashid al-Din and Bolad Chengxiang.” In Pearls on a String: Art in the Age of Great Islamic Empires, ed. Amy Landau, 53-85.... more
Berlekamp, Persis, Vivienne Lo, and Yidan Wang. “Administering Art, History, and Science in the Mongol Empire: Rashid al-Din and Bolad Chengxiang.” In Pearls on a String: Art in the Age of Great Islamic Empires, ed. Amy Landau, 53-85. (Baltimore and Seattle: Walters Art Museum and Washington University Press, 2015).
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Review of Bernard O’Kane, ed., The Iconography of Islamic Art: Studies in Honour of Robert Hillenbrand. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 69 (Spring, 2010): 148-150.
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Berlekamp, Persis. “From Iraq to Fars: Tracking Cultural Transformations in the 1322 Qazwini `Aja’ib Manuscript.” In Handbücher der Orientalistik, 90, Arab Painting: Text and Image in Illustrated Arabic Manuscripts, ed. Anna Contadini... more
Berlekamp, Persis. “From Iraq to Fars: Tracking Cultural Transformations in the 1322 Qazwini `Aja’ib Manuscript.” In Handbücher der Orientalistik, 90, Arab Painting: Text and Image in Illustrated Arabic Manuscripts, ed. Anna Contadini (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 73-91.
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Review of David J. Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 1400-1600: From Dispersal to Collection, in CAA Reviews (2006), http://www.caareviews.org (accessed June 20, 2006).
Berlekamp, Persis. “Painting as Persuasion: A Visual Defense of Alchemy in an Islamic Manuscript of the Mongol Period” Muqarnas 20 (2003): 35-59.