This course takes the palace as the locus of the spatial and visual enunciations of Muslim kingship. In a network of framing intentions and significations, the palace and its representational plentitude – from architecture and landscaping to ceremonials and their accoutrements, from spectacle and spectatorship to gendered zones of access – will be analyzed as carefully orchestrated manifestations of the cultural production of kingship. Readings and discussions of a wide range of material render this course as much a study of palatine architecture and courtly arts as an exploration of the political, economic, social and cultural particularities of Muslim kingdoms. We shall seek to trace ways in which they formulated their distinctive rhetoric of sovereignty through experiencing the palaces, their furnishings and the luxury objects of utility. The places, times and lives that we encounter in this course are richly represented through a variety of cultural phenomena. We will give as equal an opportunity to dishes and robes used in courtly ceremonies as to the architectural articulation of the gaze and the ceremonial traffic patterns. In Muslim court societies, jewelry, ceremonial swords and daggers, candlesticks and carpets are as important a representation of a self-image as are luxury illustrated manuscripts that circulated in princely literary gatherings. Our goal is to gain a nuanced understanding of the iconography of kingship in the Islamic world through close and critical considerations of the visual and the literary. Estimated cost of materials: $50 or more, but less than $100. l. 2. 3