My teaching focuses on the art and architecture of the lands of Islam before 1500, with particular attention to portable objects and the movements of materials, motifs, and ideas across cultural, religious, and political boundaries. In my courses, I emphasize the breadth of the dār al-Islām and the varied communities, traditions, and histories that it comprises, especially those at its furthest boundaries. Through close engagement with objects, monuments, and their histories, I encourage students to consider how the category of ‘Islamic art’ can illuminate connections across this vast world without obscuring its extraordinary diversity. I also teach material from the wider Mediterranean, from western Europe to the Byzantine Empire, as well as courses spanning broader temporal ranges that address the intersections of art, religion, and politics from the medieval period to the present.
Appointments
- Mary Ausplund Tooze Endowed Visiting Professor of Islamic Art, Fall 2025
Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design, Portland State University
Contributed to the Fall 2025 Undergraduate Study Trip to the Seattle Art Museum. Developed an undergraduate lecture course, Arts of Exchange in the Lands of Islam, and wrote a successful proposal for its inclusion in the Race and Ethnic Studies Requirement for all undergraduates.
- Instructor of Record, Core Curriculum, Columbia University, 2020–21
Art Humanities: Masterpieces of Western Art
Undergraduate Seminar taught in the fall and spring semesters
- Teaching Fellow, Department of Art History & Archaeology, Columbia University, 2018–20
Medieval Architecture, 1000–1500; Masterpieces of Indian Art & Architecture; A History of China in 27 Objects; Arts of Islam, 1000–1400
Guest Lectures
- “The Art of Khaled Sabsabi: Community Engagement, Community Crisis,” Undergraduate lecture for the course Seminar in Contemporary Art I (Kimmah Dennis), Rutgers University, December 3, 2025
- “Fire & Form: Lusterware Ceramics Circulating the Medieval Mediterranean (1000–1500),” Undergraduate lecture and excursion at Seattle Art Museum (Anne McClanan), Portland State University, November 21, 2025
- “The Mantle of Roger II and its Afterlives, from Nuremberg to Paris Fashion Week,” Undergraduate lecture for the course History of Dress II (Annin Barrett), Portland State University, November 18, 2025
- “Medieval Ornament and Modern Identity: Medievalism Meridionale in Italy and its Colonies,” Graduate lecture for the seminar Cities of Knowledge: Orientalizing Manhattan (Ziad Jamaleddine; Avinoam Shalem), Columbia University, October 1, 2024
- “Mobile Motifs and Materials in the Medieval Mediterranean,” Undergraduate and graduate lecture delivered in the Medieval and Islamic Art galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the bridge seminar Medieval Mediterranean Love Songs (Susan Boynton; Isabelle Levy), Columbia University, April 28, 2024
- “Artistic Exchange between China and the Lands of Islam,” Undergraduate lecture delivered in the course A History of China in 27 Objects (Alfreda Murck), Columbia University, April 4, 2019
- “Community Engagement through the Arts,” Undergraduate lecture delivered in the course Art of Social Change (Eli Robb), Lake Forest College, February 26, 2016
- “Rupture and Remembrance in the Art of Doris Salcedo,” Undergraduate lecture delivered in the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for the Humanities Plunge run by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University, March 26, 2015
Curriculum & Teaching Development
- Curriculum coordinator for Art of the 5 Boroughs, 1960–present, 2020–21
Art x Social Justice, Prison Education Program, Columbia University
Developed lesson plans about the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres for incarcerated students
- Center for Teaching and Learning, Columbia University
Teaching Consultant, 2020–21
Teaching Observation Fellow, 2019–20
Certifications: Teaching Development Program, Advanced Track in inclusive practice (2021); Inclusive Teaching Seminar (2021); Hybrid & Online Teaching Institute (2020); Innovative Teaching Summer Institute (2018)