Tag Archives: Middle East

Happy Birthday Michel Écochard

It he were alive today, architect and urban planner Michel Écochard would be celebrating his 114th birthday. Born March 11, 1905 in Paris, he went to work for the Colonial Antiquities Service of Syria and Lebanon almost immediately after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts. By the time of his death on May 24, 1985 he had received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) for the restoration of the Azem Palace in Damascus, and carried out projects in Cameroon, the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Guinea, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal, Syria, and Turkey. In the mid-1980s Écochard donated […]

Call for Papers, Chronicles and Curation: Documenting Cultural Transitions in the Wider Middle East

The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT is seeking presenters for a session at the BRISMES Annual Conference, 5-7 July 2017, at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Chronicles and Curation: Documenting cultural transitions in the wider Middle East Periods of transition and upheaval pose a particular challenge to those involved in cultural documentation and curation. During such times, the categories, terms, and epistemologies—the very systems we use to classify cultural knowledge—are in flux. Instability and turmoil can obfuscate or obliterate traces of another culture or society. Our panel will focus on these concerns in praxes of chronicling and curating cultural […]

Middle East Librarians Association and Ismailimail congratulate AKDC Archnet for its Global Grid recognition

AKDC@MIT thanks MELA and Ismailimail for their kinds words. Archnet is a global project and could not happen without the support of individuals, institutions, and organizations such as yours and your members; we are grateful for your input and the promotion of our site.

AKDC@MIT Program Head at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations

Sharon C. Smith, Ph.D., spoke at the Media in Muslim Contexts: Inventing and Reinventing Identities conference sponsored by the Aga Khan University (International), in the United Kingdom, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, 3-4 November 2016. There, she presented her paper “The Past Demands an Answer: What Becomes of History in the Digital Era?” exploring the opportunities, constraints, intentions, and consequences–planned and not–of the production, presentation, and dissemination of digital projects about and/or from the Middle East writ large. The conference was simulcasted with campuses in Nairobi and Karachi.