ON-LINE PUBLICATIONS

AKPIA@MIT FORUM
Studies In Architecture, History and Culture

This AKPIA@MIT project aims to highlight the work of the program’s associates and make it available to our wider community on the web. The papers reflect research done while at AKPIA@MIT and anticipate larger and fuller publications later on.

Hanaa M. Adly	Helwan University Egypt	MIT residence 10/07 - 12/07	A Study on Islamic Human Figure Representation in Light of a Dancing Scene
Samer Akkach	University of Adelaide, Australia	MIT residence 09/02 - 11/02	Poetry and Landscape Aesthetics in the Arab-Islamic Tradition
Vlad Atanasiu	Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes Paris, France	MIT residence 10/03 - 7/04	The President and the Calligrapher: Arabic Calligraphy and Its Political Use
Vlad Atanasiu holds a M.A. in Arabic lexicography and Middle Eastern Studies, practiced calligraphy in Istanbul and Damascus, wrote a book on statistical fundamentals of calligraphy, traveled in Iran for research on manuscripts, was granted a Ph.D. in Paleography and Islamic Art history, took cognitive sciences and Japanese language classes while an Aga Khan Post-Doc at MIT and now writes image processing software for the expertise of paper documents.
Jigar Bhatt	MIT MCP 2006	AKPIA Travel Grant 2005	Preservation of Threatened Islamic Architecture on the Island of Mozambique
Jigar Bhatt has a background in political economy and urban development. He received is Bachelors in Economics from Northeastern University and Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His professional work is focused on the role of the state in poverty alleviation and economic development. He currently evaluates economic development projects in Lusophone Africa. Previously, he has consulted for the World Food Program and WaterAid and evaluated poverty alleviation programs in the United States. Mr. Bhatt was born and raised in New Jersey. His family is originally from the state of Gujarat, India."
Stefan Heidemann	Friederich Schiller Universität Jena, Germany	MIT residence 09/07 - 02/08	The Transformation of Middle Eastern Cities in the 12th Century: Financing Urban Renewal
Stefan Heidemann studied Islamic history, law, art, and economics in Regensburg, Berlin, Damascus, and Cairo from 1982 to 1993, receiving his PhD in 1993 from the Free University Berlin. Being appointed as assistant professor at Jena University, Germany, in the following year, he completed his habilitation in 2001 on the renaissance of the cities in the 11th and 12th centuries. After two years of teaching as visiting professor at Leipzig University, he returned to Jena as Hochschuldozent (associate professor) in 2004. Working in different fields, material culture, numismatics, and archeology always play a major role in his studies. He works with archeological missions in Syria, Portugal, Turkey, Iraq and Mongolia.
Hussein Keshani	University of Victoria, Canada	MIT residence 01/04 - 04/04	Strangers, Lovers, and Kin: Gender Roles and their Interplay with the Architecture of Awadh
Hussein Keshani received his PhD in 2003 from the University of Victoria in Canada. His primary area of specialization is the history of Islamic visual culture in South Asia and its social context. He has published on Qur’anic epigraphy in the Delhi Sultanate and Twelver Shi’a ritual centers in Awadh, North India. His current research examines how gender relations can be used as a way to understand architectural development in Awadh.
Setrag Manoukian	Università di Milano-Bicocca	MIT residence 01/04 - 03/04	History and the Production of the “Culture of Shiraz”
Setrag Manoukian is assistant professor of anthropology and Iranian studies at McGill University. He received his PhD in anthropology and history from the University of Michigan (2001) and taught at Università di Firenze and Università di Milano-Bicocca. He is currently writing a book on the social construction of knowledge in contemporary Shiraz.
Marcus Millwright	University of Victoria	MIT residence 04/06 - 05/06	Defining Islamic Archaeology: Some Preliminary Notes
Giulia Annalinda Neglia	Politecnico di Bari, Italy	MIT residence 9/04 - 11/04	The Permanence of Roman Layouts in the Urban Fabric of Aleppo
Cristina Pallini	Milan Polytechnic, Italy	MIT residence 10/03 - 07/04	Italian Architects and Modern Egypt
Cristina Pallini is a research fellow at the School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches a final-year design studio. She holds a BA degree in Architecture from the School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano (1990) and a PhD in Architectural Composition from the University of Venice (2001). Dr. Pallini is a practicing architect in Milano. Her research on city reconstruction and modernization projects in the Eastern Mediterranean was supported by scholarships from the Italian Research Council, the Greek Scholarship Foundation, the Greek Ministry of Education, the Aga Khan Program at MIT, and the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.
Nadeem Omar Tarar	National Coillege of Art, Lahore	MIT residence 12/07 - 05/08	Framing of a National Tradition:Modern Masters and NationalArt History in Pakistan
	Articles by the 2003-2004 AKPIA@MIT Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellows