Wednesday, September 4, 2024
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Travel back in time to 17th-century Italy and the forgotten world of Ferdinando de Medici’s Livorno… all during your lunch break! The Medicis were the most influential family in the Republic of Florence and later Duchy of Tuscany. For centuries, the port they built in Livorno in the 1600s competed with Venice and Genoa as a prosperous center of exchange for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim merchants, with family networks stretching from Amsterdam to Fez and Istanbul. Guest presenter Dr. Ali Humayan Akhtar, Professor of Global History & Islamic Arts and Humanities at AUI: Akhawan University in Ifrane, Morocco, will provide a historical overview of Italian-Jewish objects and portraits from Livorno against the colorful backdrop of Jewish-Christian-Muslim cultural exchange and cooperation during the Renaissance. This interactive discussion is a “must” for history buffs, art lovers, and interreligious and cross-cultural bridge-builders.
About the Guest Presenter:
Ali Humayun Akhtar is the award-winning author of Italy and the Islamic World: From Caesar to Mussolini (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), 1368: China and the Making of the Modern World (Stanford University Press, 2022), and Philosophers Sufis & Caliphs (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He is a Professor of Global History & Islamic Arts and Humanities and Faculty in the Hillary Clinton Center for Women’s Empowerment at AUI: Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco as well as a former National Endowment for the Humanities consultant at the Worcester Museum of Art. Akhtar has taught around the world including at Bard College, Bates College, Ewha Women’s University (Seoul), and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Akhtar is originally from Indianapolis and New Jersey.
Pizza provided so you don’t have to brown bag it!
Registration free but required.
All images copyright of the artist, unless otherwise noted; reproduction not allowed without express permission
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