The Department of Art History is pleased to announce that longtime affiliate, Prof. Preeti Chopra will join the department starting in the fall semester. A graduate of the School of Architecture at Ahmedabad, India, and the University of California at Berkeley, Prof. Chopra’s research and teaching focus on architecture, landscape and urbanism in colonial and post-colonial India. She will teach AH372, Cities of Asia, in the fall semester.
The Department will also gain new strength in the broader field of Islamic art, architecture, material and visual culture starting in the fall semester. Dr. Jennifer Pruitt has accepted a tenure-track position funded by the Mellon Initiative for the Humanities. Currently a lecturer at Smith College, in Northampton Massachusetts, Jennifer Pruitt received her A.B. magna cum laude from Smith College, and her Masters and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on the architecture and material culture of the Islamic Middle East with particular focus on Fatimid Cairo in the tenth and eleventh centuries. She also has research interests in Islamic ceramics and contemporary street art associated with the Arab Spring in Egypt. She will teach an introductory History of Islamic art and architecture (AH600 taught at 300-level) in the fall semester.