Through academic research and on-the-ground programming, bringing the arts and humanities into critical conversation with theological and religious discourses.

The arts serve as a creative medium through which humans can grapple with meaning in their present, past, and future. In public and scholarly discourse, however, the arts are understood as narrowly consisting of secular US and European forms of self-expression. By bringing a historically, theologically, and theoretically attuned approach to the arts in multiple traditions, this area of research expands both the content of what is studied as art in the academy and what effects aesthetic expression has across culture, politics, and religion. It is anchored by two projects. One is a grant project funded by the Templeton Religious Trust that brings Muslim educators from across North America, Africa, and South Asia together to conduct workshops on incorporating the arts more fully into their theological teaching and educational endeavors. The second is an experiential course, funded in part by the Arts Initiative at Notre Dame, where undergraduate students study the arts and architecture of medieval Umayyad Spain, a period in which Muslim rule resulted in the coexistence and cross-pollination of cultural expression among Jews, Christians and Muslims. This course includes a week-long trip to Cordoba, Spain.

Read more about our Pedagogies of Muslim Humanities program »