AHUM V3325

4-5 tedious readings per week recitation 3 average length papers on easy prompts 1 midterm 1 final

Not bad at all, weekly readings that you discuss in class and a few short writing assignments - one involves an object of your choice from the Met. There is a midterm and a final, both of which you prepare for with a designated list of possible objects. Standard fare, IDs and essays, all fairly graded.

My overall impression of the class was mediocre. Professor Shalem invented the banchode theory of Islamic art for he is widely known in the Islamic coffee shop community. He has also made countless publications. However, I would not take his class because I did not understand his broken English and found the subject tedious and unfruitful.

Professor Saba taught a great survey of Islamic art, touching on the foremost exemplars of the Islamic artistic tradition ranging from calligraphy to architecture and textiles. A background in Islamic art isn't necessary to do well in this course, and it serves as a nice introduction if you want to build a foundation in the area to take more advanced classes later on. The class size was fairly small, which allowed for a lecture-leading-into-discussion format that I really appreciated. Definitely a welcome change from a typical art history lecture, and I felt I got more out of it by engaging with classmates directly in almost every class. The class is object-oriented, meaning that you'll be viewing a selection of specific objects and discussing their qualities and context. Note that for this particular class, the majority of the objects studied were architectural, i.e. lots of mosque architecture. There was a fair amount of calligraphy and some precious objects such as crystal and ceramic wares, but these were not the focus, so do be aware of that if those are your areas of interest. The TA, also named Matthew, was really wonderful as well and led a few of the lectures. Both he and Professor Saba were easily accessible and were very fair in grading. Would highly recommend this course to those wishing to get a taste of Islamic art.

Shalem was passionate about teaching islamic art, but don't take this class if you have any respect for yourself or intelligence. This course was devoid of any meaningful learning experience and a total waste of time and brain. With other courses to choose from, there was absolutely no reason to go through this masochistic and dumb experience.

3 papers lots of reading (i didn't read any.. maybe 2) 1 easy final (mostly an in class essay) 1 final (in class in depth analytical essay)

This guy is clearly a brilliant, educated man. that is why it is hard to even understand how he could make such strong political remarks so swiftly. he loves what he does and you can easily see that. the reason I took him is because I love Islam and I wanted to see the cultural side of the religion. I wanted to know purely the art. and that is what this class is supposed to be about. If you are studying islam, architecture, middle east, art, or anything of that sort.. its a beautiful class to take. BUT... If you do not have a sensitive ear, you probably won't even notice but i did professor shalem is very anti-israel, which is okay. that is his opinion but he makes sure to incorporate it in any way possible into his classroom setting. he does it so nonchalantly and in a sarcastic manner that one wouldn't even be able to argue against him because its presented as a "joke." being the only israeli in the class, many times i felt devastated by his remarks. he takes a beautiful subject and puts his political opinions into it. calling israel an imperialist elitist country that took arab styles of art, architecture, and other things (such as falafel--i kid you not) and says the israelis renamed it as their own. AGAIN, i did not have a problem with his opinion. Ive heard them all. But just be prepared because I wasn't. this is supposed to be an art hum class, not politics. I was very…

Standard art history class workload: 1 Midterm, 1 4-page research paper (only 4 pages!!), 1 Final Exam Readings usually accompanying each lecture, though we didn't have to read them to do well.

There are both good and bad to the class, but as it's Prof. Shalem's first year teaching I think it will be a year or two before the kinks in the course are fully ironed out. Prof. Shalem is nice enough as a teacher, and the course is okay. You should take this course if you're interested in doing a non-Western elective as an Art History major because the workload isn't bad. However, I don't recommend this course for non-Art History majors who are looking to fulfill a core requirement. There are far more engaging courses than this one for someone who wants to take an 'insteresting elective,' and your grades will just suffer because you're going to be competing against art history majors who have experience in memorizing and regurgitating slides and writing art history papers. All in all, this course is very meh. I wouldn't say it's bad, but it's sort of not very well organized and also not overwhelmingly exciting. Lectures generally involve him going over around 50 slides (a pretty reasonable number) that are loosely focused on a specific time period or theme. However, because he seems to have this aversion to making very concrete arguments as a result of what I imagine is his background in critical theory, he ends up either talking a lot about historical developments around the time which are often inconsequential to the pieces at hand, or talking about the pieces/buildings i…