Mediterraneanism: how to incorporate Islamic art into an emerging field

This essay discusses the emergence over the last decade of a new field of Mediterranean studies. In reaction to the polemical publication of Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell’s great study of Mediterranean history, The Corrupting Sea, in 2000, medieval historians in Europe and America have since formed research clusters and organized a huge number of conferences, all seeking to redirect the study of this complex region. Traditionally studied in region-specific and hermetically-sealed academic disciplines, ‘Mediterraneanism’ seeks to explore cultural interactions and interconnections between the peoples of the Mediterranean in an impartial and pan-regionalist way. This essay asks what advantages this newly-emerging frame of enquiry offers to students of the art of the Islamic West, and suggests some avenues which might prove fruitful. One significant advantage of this model is the proper integration of the material culture of Islamic North Africa into the study of art in the Islamic West, a development that is long overdue.