Ph.D. University of Edinburgh, Islamic Art History, 1993
B.A. Trinity College, Archaeology with Mental and Moral Science, Dublin, 1988
Research Interests
Art and architecture of the Islamic world
Cross-cultural dimensions of Islamic material culture
Theories and practices of image-making
Technologies of Representation
Art historical historiography, methodology, and theory
Orientalism
Sample Courses
The Emergence of Islam and its Mediterranean Milieu
Before the Mughals: Early Indo-Islamic Material Culture
Beyond Abstraction and Arabesques: Refiguring Islamic Ornament
Intercultural Islam: Betwixt and Between in the Medieval Islamic World
Selected Publications
Books:
Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter. Princeton University Press, 2009.
Piety and Politics in the Early Indian Mosque. Edited volume in the Debates in Indian History and Society series, Oxford University Press India, 2008.
The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture. Brill, 2000.
Articles and Essays:
“An ambiguous aesthetic: Crusader spolia in Ayyubid Jerusalem,” in Robert Hillenbrand and Sylvia Auld, eds., Ayyubid Jerusalem: The Holy City in Context, 1187-1250, London: Altajir Trust, 2009, 202-215. [viewPDF]
“Islamic Identities and Islamic Art: Inscribing the Qur’an in Twelfth-century Afghanistan,” in Elizabeth Cropper, ed., Dialogues in Art History, from Mesopotamian to Modern: Readings for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2009, 91-118. [viewPDF]
“Lost in Translation: Architecture, Taxonomy and the Eastern ‘Turks’,” Muqarnas, 24, 2007, 79-116. [viewPDF]
“From the Prophet to Postmodernism? New World Orders and the End of Islamic Art,” in Elizabeth Mansfield, ed., Making Art History: A Changing Discipline and its Institutions, London & New York: Routledge, 2007, 31-53. [viewPDF]
“Image against Nature: Spolia as Apotropaia in Byzantium and the Dar al-Islam,” in Mapping the Gaze – Vision and Visuality in Classical Arab Civilisation, a special issue of The Medieval History Journal, 9.1, 2006, 143-166. [viewPDF]
“Correct Delineations and Promiscuous Outlines: Envisioning India at the Trial of Warren Hastings,” Art History, 29.1, 2006, 47-78. [viewPDF]
“Ghurid monuments and Muslim identities: Epigraphy and Exegesis in Twelfth-century Afghanistan,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 42.3, 2005, 263-294.
“Signs of Violence: Colonial Ethnographies and Indo-Islamic Monuments,” in Art and Terror, a special issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 5.2, 2004, 20-51. [viewPDF]
“Pillars, Palimpsests and Princely Practices: Translating the Past in Sultanate Delhi,” Res: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, 43, 2003, 95-116. [viewPDF]
“Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm and the Museum,” Art Bulletin, 84.4, 2002, 641-659. [viewPDF]
“The Medieval Trophy as an Art Historical Trope: Coptic and Byzantine 'Altars' in Islamic Contexts,” Muqarnas, 18, 2001, 41-72. [viewPDF]
“Ghurid Architecture in the Indus Valley: the Tomb of Shaykh Sadan Shahid,” Ars Orientalis, 36, 2001, 129-166.
“Light in Stone: the Commemoration of the Prophet in Umayyad Architecture,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-Maqdis Part Two: Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, 9, part 2, 2000, 311-59.
“The Ottoman Windows in the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque,” in Sylvia Auld & Robert Hillenbrand, eds., Ottoman Jerusalem, the Living City: 1517-1917, London, 2000, 431-63. [viewPDF]
“Umayyad survivals and Mamluk revivals: Qalawunid architecture and the Great Mosque of Damascus,” Muqarnas, 14, 1997, 57-79. [viewPDF]
“Herakles and the 'Perpetual Acolyte' of the Buddha: Observations on the Iconography of Vajrapani in Gandharan Art,” South Asian Studies, 5, 1989, 17-27. [viewPDF]
Books and Articles in Press:
Globalizing Cultures: Art and Mobility in the Eighteenth Century, edited volume, co-edited with Nebahat Avcioglu. To be published as a dedicated volume of the journal Ars Orientalis.
“Inciting Modernity? Images, Alterities, and the Contexts of ‘Cartoon Wars’,” in Patricia Spyer and Mary Steedly, eds., Moving Images (School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe).
“From Icon to Coin: Potlatch, Piety, and Idolatry in Medieval Islam,” in Gerhard Jaritz, ed., Images, Ritual, and Daily Life, proceedings of an international workshop held at Krems an der Donau, Austria, under the auspices of Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, Austrian Academy of Sciences
“Conflict and Cosmopolitanism in Arab Sind,” in Deborah Hutton & Rebecca Brown, eds., Blackwell Companion to South Asian Art.
“Masons and Mobility: Indic Elements in Twelfth-century Afghan Stone-carving,” in Anna Filigenzi, ed., Cinquant’anni di ricerca archeologica in Afghanistan, Istituto Italiano per l’Africa et l’Oriente, Rome.
“Appropriation as Inscription: Making History in the First Friday Mosque of Delhi,” in Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney, eds., The Mirror of Spolia: Premodern Practice and Postmodern Theory.
“A Ghaznavid Narrative Relief and the Problem of Pre-Mongol Persian Book-Painting,” Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting 1100-1300, proceedings of a conference held at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin.
“Stucco and Glass Windows from the East and West Palaces,” forthcoming in Raqqa IV: Excavations of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut at Raqqa, Syrian Arab Republic.
Current Research Projects:
Islam and Image: Aniconism, Iconoclasm, and the Economy of Representation. An exploration of the ‘prohibition of images’ (Bilderverbot) as a perceived characteristic of Islamic cultures and its historical role in the representation of Islam. Based on both empirical and theoretical approaches to image-making and questions of representation, the book analyses the interrelationships between proscription, prescription, and artistic praxis. To be published by Reaktion Books, London.
Selected Honors
Carnegie Foundation Scholar, 2007-2008
NYU's Golden Dozen Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2006
Getty Scholar, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 2007
Residential fellow, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., 2006
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001
Research Fellow, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Art, Harvard University, 1997
Nasser D. Khalili Research Fellow in Islamic Art and Architecture, University of Oxford, 1993-1995
Fall 2009 Seminar:
Beyond Abstraction and Arabesques: Figuring Islamic Ornament
Spring 2010 Colloquium:
Betwixt and Between in the Medieval Islamic World