The UMMAA is pleased to present Andrea Valedón-Trapote, PhD candidate in history at the University of Michigan, and Golriz Farshi, PhD student in Middle East studies at the University of Michigan, who will speak on Friday, February 25, 12-1 p.m., as part of the online UMMAA Brown Bag Lecture Series. 

Valedón-Trapote discusses the layout and architecture of the Yuan dynasty’s (1279-1368) capital Dadu (contemporary Beijing) and proposes that it is more closely aligned with the spatial logic of cities in Mongolia and northeastern Asia than with urban traditions of “Chinese” capitals, to which Dadu is often compared.

Farshi discusses charitable complexes built by Mongol Khans to historicize sacred kingship in the thirteenth and fourteenth century Iran. Inspired by Buddhist temples and Sufi shrines dotting the landscape of the greater Mongol Empire, endowed cities came to define sovereign piety and authority, linking imperial legitimacy to the circulation of goods and people around the sacred body of the Khan.

Zoom link:
https://umich.zoom.us/j/95567379046

The Museum’s Brown Bag Lecture Series is free and open to the public.