{"word_count": 1056, "character_count": 7905}
CALL FOR PAPERSInternational Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA)Special Issue on the Conception and Use of Expertise in theArchitecture of the Islamic World since 1800Thematic volume planned for Summer 2015Proposal submission deadline: 1 March 2014As traditional narratives go, the internal religiously-drivenarchitectural production of the medieval and early modern Islamicworld ended around 1800, when Europe’s impact on the Islamic worldbecame characterized more by force than by affinity. Theselong-standing, yet dynamic internal forms of expertise, ranging frommathematics and geometry to the mastery of certain crafts likemetalwork, tile production, and masonry, faced enormous externalpressure that rid the arts of Islam of their (supposed) purity. Asseveral have argued, this transmutation of European “modernity,” asit is known, subjected most of the Islamic world to both politicaland psychological pressures that stymied intrinsic expertise and themonolithic notions of autonomous, universal, and divine creativity.In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such transformationsare more widely described under the rubric of “globalization,” asystem where access to expertise is open to so many and so readilythat its structure merely mimics capitalist culture writ large withits tendencies towards designification, mimesis, kitsch, andubiquity.The binaries of periodization (“apex” vs. “decline”) andcharacterization (“autonomy” vs. “dependency”) traditionally used tocharacterize these transformations have been duly challenged byrecent scholars, but rarely with an eye toward the immenselyimportant and mutable notion of what expertise means to those itimpacts on a day-to-day basis. Although “expert” and “expertise” arecommonly deployed terms for describing both historical andcontemporary production processes in architecture, the meanings ofthe terms are markedly devoid of a critical perspective. Defined ascomprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in aparticular area, the notion of expertise is clearly tethered to theentanglement of power and knowledge at the core of postcolonialstudies; yet its inherent function in applied “real world” andcollateral design matters has exempted it from the scrutiny directedtoward other economies of knowledge in the last three decades. Thisspecial issue joins the newer synthetic frameworks that opt out ofdualizing narratives of the Islamic world and its other, but in thespecific context of understanding the conception and use ofexpertise in the period post 1800 and its vital role in thereconfiguration of artisanal production, the circulation ofknowledge and skills, and the transformation of style.Some contemporary thinkers from other humanistic fields havesuggested a new sociological paradigm of “interactional” expertisethat generates knowledge production through transactional andmultilateral engagement, while others have theorized expertise as asystem of knowledge management and contend that “expert” knowledgehas no single source (such as a monolithic “West”). The resultingquestions are wide-ranging.  How, for example, were the dynamics ofcompetition between associations of craftsmen in medieval and earlymodern Islamic cities reconfigured after 1800, and how were the keyurban spaces where information was exchanged—the storehouse, themarket, and the university—reshaped or muted in the process? Withrapidly increasing contact with Europe, but also Africa, East Asia,and later North America, how did conceptions of expertise shift inlight of the crafts and skills of formerly unknown populations? Towhat extent has technology (perceived as originating outside theIslamic world) from the nineteenth century to the present reinforcedthe stereotype of an expert “West,” and to what extent has suchtechnology facilitated new forms of autonomous creative productionin the Islamic world? What are the promises and the pitfalls of thecontemporary free market economy’s ability to import foreignexpertise to develop local built environments, as in China’s intenseengagement in developing much of the housing sector in Nigeria orthe rapid development of oil-rich landscapes in the Islamic worlddesigned by European and North American “experts” and executed withSouth Asian labor?This special issue invites papers that explore the notion ofexpertise in the architecture of the Islamic world since 1800 in anew light, focusing on the history and practice of architecture andits allied design fields, including geography, anthropology, andcivil engineering. Themes that might be addressed include, but arenot limited to, the following:1.     - Who and/or what (e.g., guilds, masters, systems of formaltraining) has defined expertise in the production of architecture inIslamic lands from the late eighteenth century to the present day,and how has the definition been socially, religiously, or culturallyinformed—for example by the European university system?2.    -  How have “outsider” forms of expertise in the production ofarchitecture—such as the German apprenticeship system for Ottomanengineers in the construction of the Hejaz Railway to Mecca or theintroduction of brick production in Dutch colonial Indonesia—beenlegitimated, imposed, or appropriated in the modern Islamic world?3.     - What are the contours between different forms of expertise,from the highly technical to the theoretical, in the modern Islamicworld, and in what ways have these divisions had greater or lessercultural or economic importance? For example, which forms of designexpertise have been sought from abroad in major projects sincedecolonization, which have not, and are there patterns that dividealong the lines of particular forms of technical, artistic, ortheoretical expertise?4.     - To what extent is expertise an integral part of thepower/knowledge genre? How can we understand—through examples suchas the importation of French architects to Egypt in the 19thcentury, which had a defined relationship to a French civilizingmission, or the strong connection forged between the early TurkishRepublic and German and French architects and planners, which waselective—the ways in which expertise is both an extension of andseparate from the established power/knowledge genre and itsgeopolitical landscape? Is this contingent on the status of thestate (colony vs. republic), the historical period, or somethingaltogether different?5.     - What are the relationships between author and expert,authorship and expertise, in the architecture of the Islamicworld—for example, in massive collaborations such as Masdar—and howare hierarchies for giving credit established and culturallyconstructed by the host cultures and the cultures of those providingthe expertise?6.    -  How can scholars, practitioners, professionals, and artistsaddress, define, and critically theorize expertise, and whatparticular relevance does this have for the study of Islamicarchitecture?Essays that focus on historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers)should be a minimum of 5,000 words but no more than 8,000 words, andessays on design (DiP papers) can range from 2,000 to 3,000 words.Contributions from practitioners are welcome and should bear in mindthe critical framework of the journal. Contributions from scholarsof craft history and preservation as well as scholars and critics ofsustainability in the broadest sense are also particularly welcome.Please send a 400-word abstract with essay title to the guest editor,Peter Christensen, Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, TechnischeUniversität München, (peter.christensen@tum.de), by 1 March 2014.Those whose proposals are accepted will be contacted soon thereafterand requested to submit full papers to the journal by 25 July 2014.All papers will undergo full peer review.For author instructions regarding paper guidelines, please consult:http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=204/