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AH4218   The Art of Iran, 600 B.C. to 1700 A.D.

Academic year(s): 2019-2020

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 2

Availability restrictions: Available to Art History single and joint Honours students

Planned timetable: 12 noon - 2.00pm (lecture) and either 3.00 pm or 4.00pm (seminar) Friday

The thread that runs through this entire module is that Iran has produced over the millennia one of the world's great civilisations, with a distinctive character of its own, a fact generally ignored by scholars and non-scholars alike. So the art of Iran tends to be studied as a sub-set of, say, antique or Islamic art. This approach obscures the abiding continuities of Iranian art, its originality and the way that it has transformed what it has received from the world beyond its borders. The module investigates how Iran¿s geographical position, straddling the area between East and West Asia, with links to the world of the Inner Asian steppe to the north and the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent to the south, has determined both the ideas that it has received and, reciprocally, those that it has transmitted across Eurasia, from Greece in the west to China and Japan in the east, from c.600 BC to1500 AD. The course covers architecture, sculpture, pottery, metalwork and book painting.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisite(s): Entry to the Art History Honours Programme

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 2 hour lectures (11 weeks), 1 hour seminar (11 weeks)

Scheduled learning hours: 33

Guided independent study hours: 280

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: Coursework = 100%

As defined by QAA
Written examinations : 0%
Practical examinations : 0%
Coursework: 100%

Re-assessment: Coursework = 100% (1 x Written assignment to be agreed by the Board of Examiners)

Personnel

Module coordinator: Professor R Hillenbrand
Module teaching staff: Prof Robert Hillenbrand
Module coordinator email rh52@st-andrews.ac.uk