Associate Professor of Art History
Ph.D. 1993 (Medieval Islamic architecture), University of Edinburgh; B.A. 1988 (classical archaeology & philosophy), Trinity College, Dublin.

Research Interests:

Art and architecture of the Islamic world, Cross-cultural dimensions of Islamic art, Orientalism & the representation of Islamic cultures, history of optical technology.

Fellowships/Honors:

Carnegie Foundation Scholar, 2007-2008; Getty Scholar, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 2007; Residential fellow, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2006; Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001;Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002; NYU's Golden Dozen Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2006.

Selected Works:

Objects of Translation: Material Culture and 'Hindu-Muslim' Encounter, 800-1250. Princeton University Press. Forthcoming.

Piety and Politics in the Early Indian Mosque. Volume in the 'Debates in Indian History' series. Oxford University Press India. Forthcoming.

The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture. Brill. 2000.

“Lost in Translation: Architecture, Taxonomy and the Eastern ‘Turks’,”  Muqarnas 24. 2007.

“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. Routledge. 2007.

“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.

“Correct Delineations and Promiscuous Outlines: Envisioning India at the Trial of Warren Hastings.” Art History, 29.1. 2006.

“Ghurid monuments and Muslim identities: Epigraphy and Exegesis in Twelfth-century Afghanistan.” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 42.3. 2005.

“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.

“Pillars, Palimpsests and Princely Practices: Translating the Past in Sultanate Delhi.” Res, 43. 2003.

“Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm and the Museum.” Art Bulletin, 84.4. 2002.

“The Medieval Trophy as an Art Historical Trope: Coptic and Byzantine 'Altars' in Islamic Contexts,” Muqarnas, 18. 2001.

“Ghurid Architecture in the Indus Valley: the Tomb of Shaykh Sadan Shahid.” Ars Orientalis, 36. 2001.

“Umayyad survivals and Mamluk revivals: Qalawunid architecture and the Great Mosque of Damascus.” Muqarnas, 14. 1997.

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