The Seran and Ravi Trehan Research Fund in the Arts of the Islamic World is designed to support public research events at the Bard Graduate Center. The Fund will help to underwrite lectures, panels and symposia across the geographical and chronological range of art and artifacts from the Islamic world. In time, the Trehan Research Fund will make the BGC an intellectual rendez-vous for study of the arts of the Islamic world in New York City.
The first Trehan Lecture was delivered on 29 November 2007 by Stefano Carboni, Visiting Professor at the BGC and Curator of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The 'Liquid Frontiers' of Islamic Art: Interaction and Exchange in the Medieval Period." His talk was followed by a commentary offered by Professor Renata Holod of the University of Pennsylvania.
The second Trehan Lecture will be delivered by Her Highness, Sheikha Hussah Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, Director of Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyyah Museum, Kuwait, on Monday 20 October, 2008. Her title is "FROM PRIVATE TO PUBLIC: The Metamorphosis of the al-Sabah Collection."
