Over the past few years, I have been steadily working on my next book project, preliminarily entitled Elements of the Middle East: Art, Faith, and Ecology. My research entails fieldwork among rural, agricultural, desert, and minority communities across the Islamic world, focusing on what has historically been considered “low-brow” or mundane stuff, such as agricultural mosques, tree and mountain shrines, rock-cut depots and wooden storage structures, sacred springs and pools, and bird cavities, nests, houses, and towers. I have published several pilot pieces, especially on trees and birds, en route to the monograph.
Image: Two pigeon towers, Siwa, Egypt, photo by C. Gruber, March 2023.
Highlights:
- The Moon: A Voyage Through Time
- “The Tree as an ‘Animal-esque Plant’ (Nabat Hayawani): Arboreal Thoughtscapes in Islamic Lands”
- “Wishing Trees and Whirling Rocks: Eco-Material Rituals at the Alevi Shrine of Abdal Musa”
- “Like Hearts of Birds: Ottoman Avian Microarchitecture in the Eighteenth Century”
- “Hima in the House: Avian Architecture Across the Islamic World” (video)