D. Fairchild Ruggles

D. Fairchild Ruggles gained her bachelor's degree cum laude in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She gained her master's degree and doctorate in History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania.{{cite web |title=D. Fairchild Ruggles, Ph.D. |url=https://arch.illinois.edu/faculty/d-fairchild-ruggles-phd |publisher=University of Illinois |accessdate=February 9, 2018}} She held teaching posts at Cornell, Harvard, Binghamton University, and Ithaca College. In 2000, she went to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign as a tenured Associate Professor; she became full Professor in 2007. She has held the Debra Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture since 2018, with additional appointments in Art History, Architecture, Spanish & Portuguese, and Gender & Women's Studies.{{cite web |title=D. Fairchild Ruggles |url=https://landarch.illinois.edu/faculty/d-fairchild-ruggles/ |publisher=Illinois University |access-date=April 21, 2021}}

Ruggles has written on a wide range of topics. She has served as the Art and Architecture Field Editor for the Encyclopaedia of Islam since 2016. She is known for her studies of the landscapes and gardens of the Islamic world and its diasporas, including those in South Asia and the Islamic Golden Age of al-Andalus. Her books have been translated into at least 9 languages.

File:PalacioDelGeneralife.JPG of the Islamic Golden Age of Al-Andalus.]]

Just as Islamic culture is historically complex, so too is the history of its landscapes. Ruggles traces the earliest Islamic gardens to the need to organize the surrounding space of human civilization, tame nature, enhance the earth's yield, and create a legible map for the distribution of agricultural and natural resources. Cautioning against the too-easy simplification of Islamic gardens as having a single meaning or reflecting a single identity, she has described these gardens as "expressions of memory, place-making, humankind's position in the great cosmos, the imagination, rationality, political power, and the yearning for eternity."{{cite book |last=Ruggles |first=D. Fairchild |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/811411235 |title=Islamic gardens and landscapes |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-8122-0728-6 |location=Philadelphia |page=144 |oclc=811411235}}

Ruggles is also a scholar of gender. In her introduction to Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies (2000), she queried modern conceptions of agency, asking what forms of power were held by Muslim women in the 8th through 19th centuries.{{Cite book|last=Ruggles |first=D. F. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/42765021 |title=Women, patronage, and self-representation in Islamic societies |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-7914-4469-6 |location=Albany |pages=6–7 |oclc=42765021}}

• (2000) Eleanor Tufts Book Award from the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies for Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain{{cite web |last=Ruggles |first=D. F. |title=Department of Landscape Architecture |url=https://landarch.illinois.edu/faculty/d-fairchild-ruggles/ |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150324081840/http://landarch.illinois.edu:80/faculty/d-fairchild-ruggles |archive-date=2015-03-24 }}
• (2009) J. B. Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies for Islamic Gardens and Landscapes{{cite web |title=Islamic Gardens and Landscapes {{!}} D. Fairchild Ruggles |url=http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14389.html |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |accessdate=10 February 2018}}
• (2009) Allen G. Noble Book Award from the International Society for Landscape, Place, & Material Culture for Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision (with co-author Dianne Harris){{cite web |title=Allen G. Noble Book Award |url=http://www.pioneeramerica.org/awardnoble.html |publisher=International Society for Landscape, Place, & Material Culture |accessdate=10 February 2018}}
• (2021) Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award from the American Society for Overseas Research for Tree of Pearls{{cite web |title=Previous Award Recipients |url=https://www.asor.org/about-asor/honors-awards-2/previous-award-recipients/ |access-date=2021-04-20 |website=American Society of Overseas Research}}

Distinctions include National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, appointment to the [https://bridgingcultures-muslimjourneys.org NEH Muslim Bookshelf] project with the American Library Association, and a grant to co-direct an NEH Summer Institute in Granada, Spain; a fellowship from the American Council for Learned Societies; a fellowship from the Getty Grant Program and appointment to co-direct a multi-year project "Mediterranean Palimpsests"; fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art; a residency at Shangri La from the Doris Duke Foundation; and an appointment as Visiting Scholar at Dumbarton Oaks.{{cite web |last1=Ruggles |first1=D. Fairchild |title=Curriculum Vitae |url=https://landarch.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/CV-word.LA-web.Mar2020.pdf |publisher=Illinois University |access-date=21 April 2021}}

Shirine Hamadeh, in Review of Middle East Studies, called the book a "compelling study of seven centuries of Islamic garden and landscape tradition in the Iberian peninsula". She writes that Ruggles assembles a wide variety of types of evidence – archaeology, history, poetry, agricultural writings, and paintings – to show that a new "landscape vocabulary" was created at Madinat al-Zahra, Cordoba, in the tenth century, and that this spread across al-Andalus until it reached its zenith at the Alhambra palace.{{cite journal | last=Hamadeh | first=Shirine | title=Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain, by D. Fairchild Ruggles. 264 pages, notes, bibliography, index, color/b&w illustrations. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. $65.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-271-01851-8 | journal=Review of Middle East Studies | publisher=Cambridge University Press | volume=35 | issue=1 | year=2001 | issn=0026-3184 | doi=10.1017/s0026318400041742 | pages=86–87 | s2cid=164622407 }}

Maria Rosa Menocal, in The Medieval Review, wrote that "Ruggles's always clear narrative interweaves all the fundamental threads of the historical and political events necessary to fully appreciate the cultural bases of everything that had to do with that dramatic transformation of the Iberian landscape. She seems as at home talking about the changing yields of crop harvests as about the variations in the concepts of paradise as a garden across different cultures."{{cite journal |title=01.08.10, Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain: The Medieval Review |journal=The Medieval Review |date=August 2001 |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/15115/21233 |access-date=2021-04-20 |publisher=Indiana University}}

The book was reviewed in The Burlington Magazine in 2001.{{cite journal |title=[Review] Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain |journal=The Burlington Magazine |date=2001 |volume=143 |issue=2 (1175) |page=102}}

Laura E. Parodi, in Journal of Islamic Studies, wrote that the book offered material for reflection on some difficult questions, such as how to define an "Islamic" artefact.{{cite journal |last=Parodi |first=Laura E. |title=[Review] Islamic Gardens and Landscapes By D. Fairchild Ruggles |journal=Journal of Islamic Studies |year=2010 |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=439–443 |doi=10.1093/jis/etq029}}

The Foundation for Landscape Studies wrote that "Ruggles uses poetry, court documents, agronomy manuals, and early garden representations to immerse the reader in the world of the architects of the great gardens of the Islamic world, from medieval Morocco to contemporary India. Western admirers have long seen the Islamic garden as an earthly reflection of the paradise said to await the faithful. Such simplification, Ruggles contends, denies the sophistication and diversity of the art form. Just as Islamic culture is historically dense, sophisticated, and complex, so too is the history of its built landscapes. She follows the evolution of early Islamic agricultural efforts to their aristocratic apex in the formal gardens of the Alhambra in Spain and the Taj Mahal in Agra."{{cite web |title=2009 Jackson Book Prize |url=https://www.foundationforlandscapestudies.org/jackson_prize/2009_jackson_book_prize.php |access-date=2021-04-20 |publisher=Foundation for Landscape Studies}}

Elizabeth Urban, reviewing the book in the American Journal of Islam and Society, notes that Shajar al-Durr, Arabic for "Tree of Pearls", was a rare example of a female Sultan, distinguished further by having been a slave. Urban comments that Ruggles emphasizes al-Durr's effect on Islamic architecture through her patronage of new buildings in Cairo. Urban calls Ruggles's description of al-Durr's rise to power "a gripping account". She writes that Ruggles makes the suggestion that since al-Durr could not present herself publicly, "she instead used ... public architecture to create larger-than-life, self-aggrandizing monuments to both herself and her husband." In her view, Tree of Pearls "is a lucid introduction to Shajar al-Durr’s career and especially her mastery of the symbolic language of public architecture."{{cite journal | title=Tree of Pearls | journal=American Journal of Islam and Society | publisher=International Institute of Islamic Thought | volume=39 | issue=3-4 | date=16 February 2023 | issn=2690-3741 | doi=10.35632/ajis.v39i3-4.3163 | pages=189–192| doi-access=free }}

• (2000) Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain
• (2008) Islamic Gardens and Landscapes
• (2014) co-authored with Henry Kim, Ruba Kana’an, and Philip Jodidio. The Aga Khan Museum Guide; republished as Pattern and Light: Aga Khan Museum; French edition: Forme et Lumière. Le Musée Aga Khan
• (2020) Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr

• (2000) Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies
• (2007) Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision (with Diane Harris)
• (2007) Cultural Heritage and Human Rights (with Helaine Silverman)
• (2009) Intangible Heritage Embodied (with Helaine Silverman)
• (2011) Islamic Art and Visual Culture: An Anthology of Sources
• (2012) On Location
• (2014) Woman's Eye, Woman's Hand: Making Art and Architecture in Modern India
• (2017) Sound and Scent in the Garden

• Writer and presenter of seven short films—Calligraphy, Mosques and Religious Architecture, Islamic Textiles, The Arts of Trade and Travel, Islamic Gardens, Geometry, and The Arts of the Book and Miniature Painting—for the [https://bridgingcultures-muslimjourneys.org/themes/show/6 Muslim Journeys Bookshelf] project of the National Endowment for the Humanities in association with the American Library Association. Produced by Jeff Weihe, Twin Cities Public Television, 2013{{Cite web|title=Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys|url=https://bridgingcultures-muslimjourneys.org/themes/show/6|access-date=2021-04-20|website=bridgingcultures-muslimjourneys.org}}

• Filmed interview for one-hour documentary film Ancient Builders: Alhambra, RMC Productions (French television), to be aired in France in 2021.
• Filmed interview and consultant for two-hour documentary, [https://kikim.com/project/the-ornament-of-the-world/ Ornament of the World], directed by Michael Schwartz, Kikim Media, screened at the 2019 Madrid Film festival and broadcast on PBS in 2019{{cite web |title=The Ornament of the World: Kikim Media |url=https://kikim.com/project/the-ornament-of-the-world/ |access-date=2021-04-20}}
• Filmed interview and consultant for the two-hour documentary film, [https://www.pbs.org/show/islamic-art-mirror-invisible-world/ Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World], Unity Productions and Gardner Films, premiered at Kennedy Center, Washington DC, 2011; broadcast on PBS in 2012{{cite web |title=Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World |publisher=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/show/islamic-art-mirror-invisible-world/|language=en|access-date=2021-04-20}}
• Filmed interview for television documentary Ancient Megastructures: The Alhambra, National Geographic, broadcast 2009{{cite web |title=Ancient Megastructures |url=http://natgeotv.com/ca/ancient-megastructures |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100605075831/http://natgeotv.com/ca/ancient-megastructures |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 5, 2010 |access-date=2021-04-20 |publisher=National Geographic - Videos, TV Shows & Photos - Canada}}
• Filmed interview for Perspectives on Faith, Ebru cable television, Turkey/US, broadcast 2008{{cite web |title=Perspectives on Faith - D. Fairchild Ruggles | website=YouTube |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwfcZlJUG_E |access-date=2021-04-20}}
• Filmed interview for the two-hour documentary film, [https://www.pbs.org/show/cities-light-rise-and-fall-islamic-spain/ Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain], Unity Productions and Gardner Films, broadcast on PBS in 2007{{cite web |title=Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain {{!}} PBS|website=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/show/cities-light-rise-and-fall-islamic-spain/ |access-date=2021-04-20}}
• Radio interview, BBC, Four Corners, April 1, 2002.
• Audio interview, National Geographic, Tale of Three Cities, 196/2 (August, 1999).

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• [https://landarch.illinois.edu/faculty/d-fairchild-ruggles Home page]
• [http://podcast.islamicartdoha.org/2007/d-fairchild-ruggles/ The Great Mosque of Cordoba (podcast)]. Islamic Art Symposium, Doha {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422140538/http://podcast.islamicartdoha.org/2007/d-fairchild-ruggles/ |date=2021-04-22 }}

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Category:Historians of Islamic art

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