Associate Professor Dr. Esra Akın-Kıvanç receives Proposal Enhancement Grant

Congratulations to USF School of Art & Art History Associate Professor Dr. Esra Akın-Kıvanç on the receipt of a Proposal Enhancement Grant from the USF Research Council.

This grant will allow Professor Akın-Kıvanç to travel to Spain, Morocco, and Turkiye to conduct research to enhance an NEH Fellowship application. She will be researching Late Antique and Medieval Christian and Jewish calligraphic inscriptions and graphic diagrams found on portable objects (such as textiles and metalworks), as well as in architectural contexts.

Dr. Akın-Kıvanç believes that these motifs served as models for later-period Islamic calligraphic designs. Scholarship has traditionally championed Islamic art of calligraphy as a “pure” art form, created exclusively by Muslims who used solely Islamic signs and symbols. Her research aims to redefine Islamic art of calligraphy within a multicultural framework and explore some of the best-known examples of Islamic calligraphic design and analyze their thematic, semantic, and formal elements in relation to pagan, Judaic, and Christian artistic practices. Akın-Kıvanç’s research will inform her new book in progress, Connected by Design: Islamic Art of Calligraphy in Cross-Cultural Contexts ca. 650–1700 CE.