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Course title: Contemporary Art and Geopolitics in the Arab World

Given at: Paris School of International Affairs

Regional concentration: Middle East

Language of instruction: English

Duration of course: 24 hours

Objective of the course
While following this course the student should gain fresh insights into current social and cultural developments in the Arab world, through an informed reading of its contemporary art production.

Detailed summary of the course
In this course we research how social and cultural developments can be understood through the study of contemporary art, within the different contexts present in the Arab world. The focus is on visual arts (i.e. not music, literature and theatre). Themes studied include general theory about art and politics, the evolution of the contemporary art world and how the emerging Middle Eastern art scenes fit into it, art & Islam, art & revolution, cultural policies in the Gulf Cooperation Council states and the regional art market. Each theme is approached through specific artworks, the practice of specific artists, or particular exhibitions/collections.

Some of the Books and other source materials used will be:
 * Hossein Amirsadeghi et al: New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century; Transglobe Publishing, London, 2012
 * Kristian Coates Ulrichsen: Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era; Hurst and Co, London 2011
 * Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab: Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective; Columbia University Press, New York 2010

First task
Improve the wikipedia article Art in Dubai. There is much that can be done to make it better.

As Antonia Carver says about the Art Dubai fair: We are roughly one-third from the Middle East, one-third from Europe and one-third from the rest of the world; that’s been the balance for the past two years.