A conversation with the co-curators of Beinecke’s latest exhibition: Roberta L. Dougherty, Yale Library’s librarian for Middle East studies, Özgen Felek, a lector of Ottoman in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Agnieszka Rec, curator at the Beinecke Library.

Zoom webinar registration link: https://bit.ly/3Q7CPTS

Yale Library’s collection of manuscripts produced in the Islamic world is among the largest and oldest in the United States. Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts celebrates Islamic civilization and its interconnected artistic, religious, and scholarly traditions. Through 150 items from the 9th to the 19th centuries, visitors are invited to engage with the intellectual and aesthetic values and practices of the many peoples and communities encompassed by Islamic civilization. The exhibition sheds light on how these manuscripts—and the ideas they contain—were transmitted and disseminated. Gallery guests will encounter diverse books, from lavishly illuminated Qur’ans, elegant calligraphy albums, and delicately illustrated epics and chronicles to well-thumbed prayer books, beloved poetry collections, detailed maps, learned science and mathematics volumes, and more. The papers, inks, and bindings that transmit these ideas and genres reveal a continuity of artistic traditions and new innovations in works from the Middle East to North Africa, Europe, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and North America.

Each of the co-curators will also give individual Mondays at Beinecke talks later in the semester. The exhibition is on view from February 24 to August 10. More information: https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/taughtbythepen