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Spectacles of Consumption: Arts, Ecologies, and Politics of Feasting at Early Modern Muslim Courts

Objective

At the early modern courts of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, feasts were complex multisensory events into which enormous natural, material, and human resources were poured. At feasts, the presentation of extravagantly perfumed foods in sumptuous vessels formed only part of broader ephemeral spectacles designed to activate all the senses and to arouse myriad emotions from wonder to shame. Celebrated on religious, diplomatic and other formal occasions, feasts brought together locals and foreigners, representatives of different social groups and members of multiple faiths, who often ate and drank in the company of other arts—including music and poetry—in rigorously stratified settings. Taking food as a multimedia, multisensory, and ephemeral art form, and feasts as transitory, embodied cultural events, the FEASTS project will be the first to investigate the material, visual, spatial, ecological, technical, and gustatory configurations of food and to comparatively explore patterns and meanings of communal eating and drinking during Islam’s ‘Age of Empires.’
FEASTS thus aims to open up a new and crucial line of inquiry in Islamic and early modern art history that is attentive to food’s resources, materials, and preparation techniques, to its social and spatial contexts, to its engagements with the other arts, and to the multitude of its historical meanings. Its multidisciplinary and comparative methodology will engage art history with other approaches from cultural anthropology and environmental studies to literature. By placing ephemeral and performative materials in conversation with more enduring artforms, it will join current efforts to decolonize the study of Islamic art, which remains focused on objects in Western museums. Through an expanded artistic vocabulary, FEASTS will also produce a more inclusive art history that illuminates the religious, political and cultural histories of, and connections and rivalries between, these early modern superpowers.

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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 537 050,00
Address
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5
00185 Roma
Italy

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Region
Centro (IT) Lazio Roma
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 537 050,00

Beneficiaries (2)