Editor's note (posted at 3:52 p.m., Sept. 7): Nasser Rabbat's lecture has been moved to 100 Kirkbride Hall to accommodate a larger audience.

4:46 p.m., Sept. 5, 2007--Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor of the History of Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, will give the inaugural talk of the 2007-08 Department of Art History lecture series, from 5:30-6:45 p.m., Monday, Sept. 10, in 100 Kirkbride Hall.

Rabbat's lecture, “The Quixotic Quest: A Brief Historiography of Islamic Architecture,” will examine the developing body of scholarly research on Islamic architecture and urban history. The talk also will address architectural studies and architectural history in the age of globalization and internationalism. “Rabbat is one of the world's most renowned scholars of Islamic architecture, and our department is very pleased and honored to have him as our first lecturer for the 2007-08 lecture series,” Vimalin Rujivacharakul, assistant professor of art history, said.

Because he has done more than three decades of research on Islamic architecture and cities, Rabbat also is considered a leading voice on Islamic studies and Islamic culture. His first book, The Citadel of Cairo: A New Interpretation of Royal Mamluk Architecture (1995), grew out of his dissertation, which won the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award in 1991. With his most recent books--Architecture as Social History: Building, Culture, and Politics in Mamluk Egypt and Syria and The Courtyard House: Between Cultural Expression and Universal Application--Rabbat has become known for his ability to closely examine source materials and represent them through new lenses and critical perspectives.

“The conference he organized at MIT in 2005, 'Islamic Cities in the Classical Age,' was a watershed in the field of Islamic urban history,” Rujivacharakul said. “Rabbat also has strong interests in historiography and research methodology. His lectures on the historiography and methodology of research in Islamic architecture, given at the Institut de monde arabe in Paris, are now being published as a collection of essays.”

Rabbat also is widely recognized for his leadership of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, which is a part of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (a section of the Aga Khan Foundation), Ikem Okoye, associate professor art history and Black American Studies, said.

The Aga Khan Foundation is the main thrust behind the developing studies of Islamic cultural heritage and historic preservation in Europe, the United States, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Lawrence Nees, professor of art history, said.

Before his talk at UD, Rabbat will be attending the 10th cycle of the prestigious Aga Khan Award Ceremony in Malaysia.

The lecture is cosponsored by the Department of Art History, the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Art Conservation. For more information about the art history lecture series, call (302) 831-8415 or visit [www.udel.edu/ArtHistory/newslect07.html].