Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
1973-81 Columbia University, Department of Art History and Archaeology
Master of Arts (January 1976)
Master of Philosophy (May 1976)
Doctor of Philosophy (May 1981)
1967-69 and 1971-73 University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Bachelor of Arts (May 1973)
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
1993-
Harvard University, Professor
1983-93
Columbia University, Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor
1981-83
Northwestern University, Mellon Assistant Professor
1979-81
Vassar College, Lecturer
1969-71
Instructor with the Bureau Technique d'Etudes et Documentation, Republic of Benin; Peace Corps.
AWARDS, HONORS, FELLOWSHIPS, ASSISTANTSHIPS
2005-6
Evelyn Green Davis Fellow, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
2005-
Chair, Editorial Board, Art Bulletin
2005
Ad. E. Jensen Memorial Lectures, Frobenius-Institut, University of Frankfurt
2005
Charles W. Wampler Jr .Lectures, James Madison University
2004
Eminent Scholar Lecture, Dartmouth College
2004
Daniel H. Silberberg Lecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
2004
Presidential Instructional Technology Fellowship
2004
CAA’s Distinguished Lifetime Achievement for Writing on Art Award, Committee Member
2001-04
Getty Center for the History of Art and Architecture, Collaborative Research Grant (Bamum Art Worlds). Team Leader.
2000-01
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (Imaging Amazons)
1999-2002
Herskovits Award, Book Selection Committee (2001-Chair)
1999
Choice Award, Book Selection for African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form
1998
Finalist, Melville Herskovits Award for African Vodun
1998
Finalist, Arnold Rubin Award for African Vodun
1997
Charles Rufus Morey Award from the College Art Association, for African Vodun as the distinguished book in Art History published in 1996
1993-98
Seaver Foundation, Grant for the "Social Roots of Creativity" project.
1990-91
Getty Scholar, Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities
1989
Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award (for The Anatomy of Architecture)
1988
Finalist, Herskovits Award (for The Anatomy of Architecture)
1988-89
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
Member, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
1988
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (declined)
1987
Millard Meiss Award, College Art Association (publication subvention for The Anatomy of Architecture)
Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia University, Associate Fellow
1985-86
Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship
Social Science Research Council Fellowship
1984, 1985, 1988
Council for Research in the Humanities Grant (Columbia)
1983-84
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship
1981
Richard Lounsbery Fellowship, American Museum of Natural History
1979-81
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Curatorial Assistant
1976-77
Fulbright-Hays Research Abroad Fellowship
1976
Columbia University, Ph.D. Orals Examination passed with Distinction
1975-76
George W. Ellis Fellowship, Columbia University
PUBLICATIONS
Books and Catalogues
Forthcoming: Ife: Politics and Aesthetics in an Ancient Nigerian Kingdom
Forthcoming: Imaging African Amazons: The Art of Dahomey Women Warriors
2005
Italian translation of Butabu:Adobe Architecture in West Africa (2004)
2005
Chinese translation of African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form (1998)
2004
Korean translation of African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form (1998)
2004
Art of the Senses: African Masterpieces from the William and Bertha Teel Collection, Suzanne Preston Blier (ed.), Christaud M. Geary, Edmund B. Gaither and William E. Teeln (contributors), (Museum of Fine Arts Publications)
2003
Butabu: Adobe Architecture of West Africa, James Morris and Suzanne Preston Blier (Princeton Architectural Press)
2001
A History of Art in Africa, Monica Blackmun Visona, Robin Poynor, Herbert M. Cole, Michael D. Harris, Rowland Abiodun, Suzanne Preston Blier (Prentice Hall)
1998
African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form (London: Calmann and King; New York: Abrams/Prentice Hall)
L'Art royal africain (Paris: Flammarion) (translation of above)
1996
The Art of Identity: African Art in the Teel Collection, exhibition catalogue with Aimee and Mark Bessire, Fogg Museum, Harvard University.
1995
African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power (University of Chicago Press)
1987
The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression (Cambridge University Press, New York)
1982
Gestures in African Art (L. Kahan, New York)
1980
Africa
's Cross
River
: Art of the Nigerian-Cameroon Border Redefined (L. Kahan, New York)
African Art as Theatre: The Mount
Collection(Vassar College)
1976
Beauty and the Beast, A Study in Contrasts (Tribal Arts, New York)
Articles
In press "Vernacular Architecture" in Handbook of Material Culture, ed. by Webb Keane.
In press"Europia: Nineteenth Century Dahomey Portrayals of the West" in Europe Observed, edited by Clement Hawes.
In press: "The Wild Women of Africa: Dahomey Amazon Performances in the West" in Living Display, ed. James Drobovnick, University of Chicago.
2005
"Razing the Roof: The Architecture of Destruction in Dahomey" in Structure and Meaning in Human Settlements, ed. by Tony Atkin (University of Pennsylvania)
"Mapping the Ituri: Mbuti Barkcloth Paintings and the Canvases of Anne Eisner," in Imaging the Congo: The Paintings of Anne Eisner, edited by Christie McDonald (Five Continents).
"Fon Monkey Figure," "Fon Asen Memorial" in Masterpieces of African Art in the New Orleans of Fine Arts, Museum for African Art, New York.
Review Essay, on three recent catalogues on African art (Pamela McClusky, Martha Anderson and Philip M. Peek, Frederick Lanp) in the Art Bulletin.
2004
"Conversation" in Musings on Barbarous Beauty: A Conversation Series on Art and the Sacred. Ed. by Ronnie Hartfield. Cambridge, Ma. Center for the Study of World Religions. Harvard University.
"Trading and Transcending Places: A Hybrid, Multiplex Approach to Visual Culture" in Mariet Westermann ed. Anthropologies of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press.
"Butabu: The Surreal Adobe Architecture of West Africa" in ICON: World Monuments
"African Creation Myths as Political Strategy" in African Arts vol 37, no. 1, pp. 39–45, 94.
"Ways of Experiencing African Art: The Role of Patina" in Art of the Senses: Masterpieces from the William and Bertha Teel Collection (Suzanne Preston Blier, Editor). Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
"Catalogue Entries" (with William Teel) in Art of the Senses: Masterpieces from the William and Bertha Teel Collection (Suzanne Preston Blier, Editor). Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
2003
"Trone royal jandeme de style akan;" "Tabouret katake a trois pieds;" "Tabouret typique" in Sieges d'Afrique Noire du musee Barbier-Mueller ed. By P. B Johannot and J. P. Barbier-Mueller. 5 Continents. pp 138-144.
"Assemblage: Dahomey Art and the Politics of Dynasty" Res: Anthropology and Art. Vol. 45. pp.186 ff.
"Fertility: Representing Regeneration in Art," Arts & Cultures, Geneva, no. 4. pp.182-209
2002
"Vodun Art, Social History and the Slave Trade" in The Visual Culture Reader, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff, Routledge (reprint from African Vodun and earlier issue) pp. 323-330
"Nine Contradictions in the New Golden Age of African Art," African Arts.
"Les Amazones a la rencontre de l'Occident," in Memoire Colonal: Zoos Humaines. Editions la Decouverte, Paris.
2001
"Autobiography and Art History," Res: Anthropology and Art. Vol. 29. pp. 24-40.
2000
"The Woman, the Snake and the Ocean: A Masterpiece of Vodun Sculpture from Southern Benin," Arts and Cultures, Geneva, no. 1.
1999
"African Art and Architecture"; "Dogon Art and Architecture"; "Benin, Art of the Early Kingdom"; and "Ife, Art of the Early Kingdom" in Microsoft® Encarta Africana, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah
"Vodun Art, Social History and the Slave Trade," in Visual Culture Reader, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff (Routledge) (Reprint from African Vodun)
1998
"The Woman, the Snake and the Ocean: A Masterpiece of Vodun Sculpture from Southern Benin," Arts and Cultures, Geneva, no. 1.
Review of Jean-Paul Bourdier and Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Drawn from African Dwellings (Indiana UniversityPress) in Common Knowledge
"Batammaliba Architecture" and "Fon Architecture" in Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture, ed. Paul Oliver.
1997
"Gesture and Art in Africa" and "Fon Art" in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Hugh Brigstocke
1996
"Le Roi Glele du Dahomey" in Magie (Musée Dapper)
"Enduring Myths of African Art." in Africa
: The Art of a Continent: 100 Works of Beauty and Power (Guggenheim Museum)
"Ritual" in Critical Terms in Art History, ed. Robert Nelson and Richard Schiff (University of Chicago Press)
1995
"Benin: The Place Where Vodun Was Born," Natural History (October)
"The Path of the Leopard: Majesty and Motherhood in Danhomé Dynastic Discourse," Journal of African History
"The African Roots of Vodou" in The Sacred Arts of Vodou, ed. Donald Cosentino (University of California Press)
1993
"Imaging Otherness in Ivory: African Images of the Portuguese Circa 1492" Art Bulletin
"Truth and Falsehood: Fetish, Magic, and Custom in European and African Art" in Africa
and the Disciplines, ed. Robert H. Bates, Valentin Mudimbe, and Jean O'Barr (University of Chicago Press)
"Art and Secret Agency: Concealment and Revelation in Artistic Expression" in African Arts of Secrecy, ed. Mary Nooter (Museum for African Art)
"Melville J. Herskovits and the Arts of Ancient Dahomey" reprint of 1988 Res article in Art in Small-Scale Societies: A Contemporary Reader, ed. Richard Anderson (Prentice Hall)
1992
"Shadow Plays: Readingbetween the Lines in Postmodern Criticism" African Arts XXV, no. 3
"First Word" African Arts XXV, no. 3
1991
"Faces of Iron: Media, Meaning, and Masking in Danhomé," Bulletin du Musée Barbier-Mueller
"Le Musée Histoire D'Abomey: Colonial and Princely Prerogatives in the Establishment of an African Museum," Quaderini Poro, Milan, Italy. Arte in Africa 2
"Comment" on W.E.A. van Beek's "Dogon Restudied" in Current Anthropology
"King Glele of Danhomé: Dynasty and Destiny (Part II) Destiny's Burden" African Arts 24, no. 1
1990
"African Art at the Crossroads: An American Perspective" in African Art Studies: The State of the Discipline (Smithsonian Institution)
1989
"King Glele of Danhomé: Divination Portraits of a Lion King and Man of Iron (Part I)" African Arts 23, no. 4
"Moral Architecture: Beauty and Ethics in Batammaliba Building Design" in Dwellings, Settlements and Tradition: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. J-P.Bourdier and N. Al Sayyad (University Press of America)
"Field Days: Melville J. Herskovits in Dahomey," History in Africa 16
1988-89
"Art Systems and Semiotics: The Question of Art, Craft, and Colonial Taxonomies in Africa," American Journal of Semiotics 6
1988
"Melville J. Herskovits and the Arts of Ancient Dahomey" Res: Anthropology and Art 16
"Solar Plexis/Spatial Nexus: Architectural Dimensions of the Soul" in Daidalos: Architektur, Kunst, Kultur
"Words about Words about Icons: Iconology and the Study of African Art," College Art Journal 47
1987
"Imagines Mundi: Narrative, Ritual, and Architectural Exemplars of Batammaliba Cosmogony," Archaeoastronomy; reprint of Chapter 1 of The Anatomy of Architecture
1985 "Kings, Crowns, and Rights of Succession: Obalufon Arts at Ife and Other Yoruba Centers," Art Bulletin LXVII, no. 3
1984
"Antelopes and Anvils: Artistic Sources and Imagery in Tamberma Works of Iron," African Arts 17, no.3 "Towards a History of Tamberma Two Story Architecture: Origins, Impetus, and Factors of Change," Iowa
Studies in African Art I
1983
"Houses are Human: Architectural Self-Images of Africa's Tamberma," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 42, 4
1982
"African Art and Architecture" in Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedia I
"Masks" in Encyclopedia Americana18
"African Cosmogony" a review essay in Archaeoastronomy 5, no. 4
1981 "The Dance of Death: Notes on the Architecture and Staging of Tamberma Funeral Performances," Res: Anthropology and Art 2
1974 "Creative/Destructive"and "Beauty and the Beast" in African Art as Philosophy, ed. Douglas Fraser
Films and Electronic Media Projects
1993
Editor-in-Chief, Baobab: Roots of Creativity in African Material Culture Electronic Media Database, Harvard University
1981
Art of Cameroon, text written for film Video-Disk, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Michael C. Rockefeller Collection
1974
Editorial Assistant for the film, Out of Fire Comes Strength: The Somba of Dahomey, produced by Douglas Fraser
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICE
2006-
Editorial Board, Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture
2004-
Distinguished Scholar Selection Committee, College Art Association
2004
Program Chair, 13th Triennial Meeting of ACASA, the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, March 31-April 3, Harvard University
2003-
Editorial Board, Art Bulletin, College Art Association
2003-
Editorial Board, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
2003-2007
Advisory Editorial Board, Journal of African History
2000-2002
Herskovits Prize Committee, Chair 2001
2001
Outside Review Committee, University of California, Santa Cruz, Art History Department
1997
Outside Review Committee, University of Michigan Art History Department
1989-94
Board of Directors, College Art Association
1986-91
Member of the Permanent Working Group on African Humanities, ACLS-SSRC Joint Sponsored Committee
1987-89
President Pro Tem. Arts Council of the African Studies Association (professional association of African art scholars)
1986-89
Board of Directors, Arts Council of the African Studies Association
1983-93
Co-Chairman, Columbia University Seminar in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Films and Electronic Media Projects
1994- Editor-in-Chief. Baobab: Visual Sources in African Visual Culture. Interactive Data Base of 7000 + images on African art and material culture
1981 Art of Cameroon, text written for film Video Disk, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Michael C. Rockefeller Collection.
1974 Editorial Assistant for the film, Out of Fire Comes Strength, The Somba of Dahomey, prod. by D. Fraser
M.A. and Ph.D. Theses
1981 "Architecture of the Tamberma (Togo)," Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1983).
1976 "Masking Traditions of Southeastern Nigeria," M.A. Thesis, Columbia University.
MUSEUM EXPERIENCE
1986-87 Consultant, National Museums, Republic of Benin.
1984 Consultant, Museum of Art, Duke University. (Evaluation of the African Collection).
1979-81 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection. (Curatorial research in preparation for exhibit opening).
1980-81 American Museum of Natural History, Collection of Artifacts, Dept. of Anthropology, Consultant.
1973-75 Columbia University, Slide Curator, Primitive Art Collection.
EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
1995 Co-Curator, "African Art and Identity: The Teel Collection,"(Harvard University)
1982 Gestures in African Art, New York (Organizer).
1982 Architecture and Life in Mali and Ghana, photographic exhibition, Northwestern University Library -Organizer
1980 African Art as Theatre, Vassar College (Organizer).
1976 Beauty and the Beast, Tribal Arts Gallery, New York (Organizer).
1976 African Art as Philosophy, photographic exhibit, Columbia University (Assistant).
1972 Yoruba and Fon Art, Fleming Museum (Organizer).
1972 Art is Life in Africa, Fleming Museum (Assistant).
ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES
Harvard University
2005- Expanded Traditions Committee, Member - Harvard Art Museums
2003- Convener, African Initiative - African Thought, Memory and Contestation
2003 -Admissions committee, Dept of African and African American Studies
2003- Selection Committee, Du Bois Fellows, Dept. of African and African American Studies
2003-Advisor, African Student Journal
2003-co-Chair African Dissertation Seminar
2003- W.E. B.Du Bois Board of Directors
2003- W.E. B.Du Bois Board of Directors
2002 Interim Head Tutor, Afro-American Studies Department
2002 Chair, W. E. B. Du Bois Fellowship Selection Committee
1995-1998 Director of Graduate Students, History of Art and Architecture
1993- Member, Committee on Africa
1993- Member, Faculty-Student Committee, History of Art
Columbia University
1992-93 Director of Graduate Studies
1991- Administration Committee, Dept. of Art History
1991- Member, Visual Resources Committee
1989-91 Member, University Senate
1990-91 Member, Security Committee
1989- Member, Faculty Planning Committee
1989-90 Committee Member, Columbia University in the 1990's
1989- Departmental Graduate Curriculum Committee
1989-90 Junior Faculty Review Committee
1989-90 Wallach Art Gallery Committee
1989- Departmental Representative, General Studies
1989-90 Co-Chairman, Modern Art Search Committee
1987-88 Search Committee, General Western Position
1987-88 Committee Member, Departmental Curriculum Committee
1987 Committee Member, Departmental planning for the 1990s
1987 Search Committee, Contemporary Art
1986 Committee to Reevaluate Art History Major Requirements
1986 General Studies Representative, Dept. of Art History
1984 Dept. Representative, Fulbright Selection Committee
1983-85 Chairman, Frick Talk Selection Committee
1983-85 Co Chairman, The University Seminar on Primitive and Pre Columbian Art
Northwestern University
1982-83 Co Chairman with Mary Douglas, Art and Anthropology Club
1982-83 Standing Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, on Study Abroad
1981-83 Faculty Associate, Humanities College
1981-83 Member, Executive Committee, Program of African Studies
1981-83 Departmental Advisor, Undergraduate Majors
GRADUATE STUDENT DISSERTATION SUPERVISING
Harvard University - Ph.D.
Cecile Fromont
Jemma Rodrigues
Dalita Scruggs
Genieve Hyacinthe
Ruth Kerkham
Prita Meier
Randall Bird
Jessica Levin
Steven Nelson
Aimee Bessire
Janet Hess
Pilar Quezzaire-Belle
Mercedes Trelles
Mark Delancey
Lauri Firstenberg
Kristina Van Dyke
Leora Maltz
Linda Rodriguez
Columbia University - Ph.D.
Shaalini Ranasinghe
John Peffer
Virginia Lee Webb
Lynn Spriggs
Gary Van Wyk
Anne d'Alleva
Alisa Lagamma
Anne Allen
Florina Capistrano
Dominique Malaquais
Sarah Travis
Mary Nooter
Northwestern University Ph.D.
Kate Ezra