Department of Anthropology

Carl Davila
PhD, Yale
Visiting Assistant Professor;
Presidential Fellow;
Joint appointment with Departments of History and Anthropology;

• Courses Taught
• Areas of Specialization
• Current Research Projects
• Selected Publications

“As a student of Arab and Islamic society, I am fascinated by the nodes where language, religious and historical discourses variously intersect and interweave to produce the rich tapestry some like to call ‘Islamic culture.’  I’m not sure if there really is such a thing, but anyway it is fascinating territory to explore.”

Courses Taught

• ANT 335  The Anthropology of Islam: A Dialogue
• ANT 366  Beyond the Veil: Gender in the Islamic World

Areas of Specialization

Culture and history of the Arab and Islamic worlds, Arabic language and sociolinguistics, anthropology of the Middle East/North Africa, The Arabo-Andalusian musical traditions in Spain and North Africa, theories of value.

Current Research Projects

Sociolinguistics of poetic texts in the Moroccan Andalusian music: the relationships among voice, pen and performance implicated within the written texts of this tradition.  Also, gender, slaves and courtly music in 9th-century Cordova: how a recently-published manuscript reveals the contributions of “artiste slaves” to the elite musical culture of medieval Islamic Spain.

Selected Publications

2006

Andalusian Strophic Poetry Between the Spoken and the Written: The Case of the Moroccan Andalusian Music.   In Muwashshah: Proceedings of the Conference on Arabic and Hebrew Strophic Poetry and its Romance Parallels, School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], London, 8-10 October 2004. Edited by Ed Emery. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.

2005

“Sunset in the Gardens of al-Andalus” (poetry from the Moroccan Andalusian Music in translation) Palimpsest.

2005

“Sunset in the Gardens of al-Andalus” Nebula 2.1 online journal.