Professor Kemerli’s Students Make Connections between Art and Literature during Guided Tour of the Met

Professor Pınar Kemerli brought her Social Foundations I: Law and Transgression in the Ancient World students to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a guided tour with Met fellow Betty Hensellek. The tour was intended to supplement and enrich the students’ reading of Ferdowsi’s Shahname. It began with a comparison between the Safavid manuscripts depicting a scene with Rustam, the main hero of the epic, in the Islamic galleries and and a depiction of how Rustam is described in the 8th century Sogdian texts and wall paintings presented by their guide. The goal was to identify and discuss the differences between these historical representations and imaginations of this legendary hero. The tour concluded in the Pre-Islamic Iranian galleries, where students focused on a Sasanian silver plate depicting a story about Bahram V Gur from Shahname, and reflected about the relationship between history and myth.