Kishwar Rizvi

Kishwar Rizvi
Professor in the History of Art
203-432-5803
190 York St, New Haven, CT 06511

Kishwar Rizvi is an historian of Islamic Art and Architecture. She has written on representations of religious and imperial authority in Safavid Iran, as well as on issues of gender, nationalism and religious identity in modern Iran and Pakistan. She is the author of The Safavid Dynastic Shrine: History, religion and architecture in early modern Iran (London: British Institute for Persian Studies, I. B. Tauris, 2011) and editor of Modernism and the Middle East: Architecture and politics in the twentieth century (University of Washington Press, 2008), which was awarded a Graham Foundation publication grant. She is completing a new book, The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and mobility in the contemporary Middle East (University of North Carolina Press), for which she was selected as a Carnegie Foundation Scholar. Her current fieldwork includes research in several parts of the Middle East, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Kishwar Rizvi teaches undergraduate introductory surveys on Islamic art and architecture, as well as seminars on art historical methods, pilgrimage, and the representations of kingship. Her courses focus on modern and contemporary architecture in the Middle East; Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal art and architecture; on the intersection between painting and poetry in Persianate art; and on the artistic, cultural, and political significance of illustrated travel literature in Europe and the Middle East from the medieval period to the present.

B.A., Wesleyan University
M.Arch., Graduate School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Select Publications: 

The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and historical memory in the contemporary Middle East, Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks Series (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

Excerpt in New Texts Out Now Jadaliyya, (March 23, 2016) http://oil.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24122/new-texts-out-now_kishwar-rizvi-the-transnational-

Author Interview in New Books in Islamic Studies, (February 8, 2016) http://oil.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24122/new-texts-out-now_kishwar-rizvi-the-transnational-

“Neo-Ottoman Architecture and the Transnational Mosque,” Author Interview in the Ottoman Studies Podcast (July 2, 2016) http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/07/mosque.html

“The Suggestive Portrait of Shah ‘Abbas: Prayer and likeness in a 1605 Safavid Shahnama (Book of Kings),” The Art Bulletin 94/2, (June, 2012). View PDF.

“Persian Pictures: Art, Documentation, and Self-Reflection in Bernard and Picart’s Representations of Islam,” in The First Global Vision of Religion: Bernard Picart’s “Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World,” edited by Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob and Wijnand Mijnhardt, (Getty Research Institute), 2010.

“Art,” Keywords for the Study of Islam, edited by Jamal Elias, (Oxford: One World Press), 2009. View PDF.

“Sites of Pilgrimage and Objects of Devotion,” in Shah ‘Abbas: The Remaking of Iran, edited by Sheila Canby, (London: British Museum Press), publication accompanying exhibition at the British Museum, 2009. View PDF.

“Modern Architecture and the Middle East: The burden of representation,” Modernism and the Middle East: Architecture and politics in the twentieth century, co-editor, (University of Washington Press) 2008. View PDF.

“Art History and the Nation: Arthur Upham Pope and the discourse on ‘Persian Art’ in the early 20th century,” Muqarnas: Journal of Islamic Art and Architecture, vol 24, (2007). View PDF.

“Religious Icon and National Symbol: The Tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran,” Muqarnas: Journal of Islamic Art and Architecture, vol 20, (2003). View PDF.