This series aimed at fostering a deeper understanding of the diverse histories, cultures, and religious practices of communities in the MENA region and abroad through the arts.

In partnership with the Fowler Museum, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies and UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies organized the workshops in this series to foster a deeper understanding of the diverse cultural practices, traditions, and beliefs of religious communities in these two world regions - Middle East and Southeast Asia - and beyond. These teacher training opportunities were designed for K-12 educators to learn about global histories through the arts and receive instructional materials for classroom instruction and application.

 

Art in Places of Worship in the Middle East and Southeast Asia (2025)

The K-12 teacher institute, featuring Heather A. Badamo (UC Santa Barbara) and Mya Chau (Loyola Marymount University), gave educators an opportunity to learn more about the cultures and histories of these two world regions through their religious spaces and places of worship and receive resources to build out new curriculum to teach these topics in the classroom. 

 

Art and Faith Across Empires: Christian Sanctuaries in the Middle East 

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Basic Introduction

• Robert G. Ousterhout, “Innovative architecture in the age of Justinian,” Smarthistory

• William Allen,“Hagia Sophia, Istanbul,” Smarthistory

• Elizabeth Macaulay and Steven Zucker,“Hagia Sophia as a mosque,” Smarthistory

Go Deeper

•  Icons of Sound Project

• Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque, again

• Gold glass tesserae from Delphi, Greece

Monastery of St. Anthony at the Red Sea, Wadi al-Arabah

Basic Introduction

• Thelma K. Thomas,“Arts of the Christian Communities in the Medieval Middle East,” in Byzantium Faith and Power (1261–1557), edited by Helen C. Evans (Yale, 2004) 415–426. Pdf of the entire catalog available here.

• Tessa Litecky “Step Inside the Chapel of St. Anthony’s Coptic Church,” Google Arts and Culture

• Tessa Litecky and Elisabeth Koch,“Resurrecting the Monastery of St. Anthony,” Google Arts and Culture

Go Deeper

• Elizabeth S. Bolman, ed., Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea (Yale, 2002), Ebook available here.

• The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (Cistercian Press, 1975), Ebook available here.

• The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, trans. Benedicta Ward (Penguin,2003). The collection, organized by topic, is available here.

Holy Savior Cathedral, New Julfa

Basic Introduction

• Christina Maranci,“Armenian Architecture in New Julfa,” in Armenia: Art, Trade, and Religion in the Middle Ages, edited by Helen C. Evans (Yale UP and Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018),267–69. Pdf of the entire catalog available here.

• Surp Amenaprgich Vank, Archnet

• Armen Haghanzarian,“ Julfa iv. Architecture and Painting,” Iranicaonline

• Ahmad Yengimolki,“Artistic Fusion in Isfahan: The Evolution of Armenian Murals in Vank Cathedral Ahmad Yengimolki,” PLATFORM, March 4, 2024.

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Teaching about the MENA: Lived Islam through the Arts (2024)

This virtual institute for K-12 teachers provided an overview of The Art of Knowing project, a pedagogical intervention and research project that utilizes non-Western, specifically Indigenous Muslim storywork, as the foundation for an extracurricular science curriculum to engage elementary school children in multiple ways of knowing and diverse orientations toward knowledge. 

Presenters, Arshad I. Ali (UC Santa Cruz), Ebtissam Oraby (George Washington University), and Sam Burmester (UC Santa Cruz), explained and demonstrated the application of social critiques of modernity and coloniality to the design of curriculum and pedagogical strategies that forward culturally responsive and revitalizing relationships with, and understanding and production of knowledge and our world. Moreover, they provided a model lesson using the story of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, a classical tale from the MENA & Muslim work that provides a theory of knowledge, as a curricular and pedagogical foundation.

 

Curriculum Materials:

 

Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale

 

The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity: a 10th century tale

 

Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice

 

Lesson Plans:

 

Introduction to Havy Ibn Yaqzan / Arshad I. Ali, Ebtissam Oraby, Samuel Burmester

 

 

 

 

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Teaching Histories of South and Southeast Asia through the Arts (2023)

"Teaching Histories of South and Southeast Asia through the Arts" was a free professional development opportunity for educators instructing grade levels 6-12. This teacher institute focused on Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim communities from South and Southeast Asia and their diasporas in Los Angeles.

Participants explored the ways individuals and communities express their key beliefs and practices through the arts. Scholars, community leaders, and curators, as well as K-12 teachers versed in differentiated learning styles, led teacher participants through curriculum activities that support the teaching of World History, Culture, Geography, and Language Arts. Educators were introduced to a wealth of Los Angeles resources–museums, murals, and religious sites- for integrating into their curricula.

The institute convened over three Saturdays in the Winter and Spring of 2023. It accompanied the Fowler Museum’s exhibition "Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings" (November 20, 2022- March 26, 2023).

Speakers:

Vikas Malhotra (California State University Northridge)

Lakshika Senarath Gamage (Norton Simon Museum)

Rebecca Hall (USC Pacific Asia Museum)

Sonic Landscapes Concert with UCLA Music of Thailand Ensemble directed by Supeena Adler (UCLA)