The workshop will explore Islamic culture, history, and identity through archaeological and art historical interpretations. The visual arts and material artifacts provide new analytical methodologies that independently create frameworks with which to examine the impact of Islam on the Middle East and surrounding areas. This is in direct response to the tradition of scholarship in the field of Islamic studies that has heavily concentrated on texts and documentary evidence. Exposure to these two ways of seeing will combine lectures and roundtable discussions often in the same meeting in order to draw wider participation and lively discussion.