Alumni Spotlight

My doctoral training at Boston University was in African studies, and my research focus is modern Egyptian art. This combination might sound strange, but my exploration of the peasant figure in Egyptian art probes the broader meaning of “Africa” to artists living and working on the continent in the early 20th century. I examine how Egyptian artists expressed national identity through the prism of race, gender, and class. Global definitions of Blackness are central to my work as a member of the Black Studies Advisory Committee. My colleagues and I are developing a minor for Skidmore’s interdisciplinary Black studies program.

I also serve as the host of a local PBS show, AHA! A House for Arts. This television show demonstrates how important the arts are to our history, well-being, and collective future. I was elected the inaugural emerging professional member of the board of directors for the College Art Association.

When reflecting on my experience as an art history major and a women’s studies minor at Mason, several things come to mind. I learned to think critically about gender and theory and took a wide variety of courses in art history. The diversity in instructor knowledge helped open my eyes to new ways of seeing myself and the world, as well as the range, depth, and richness of art and architecture as vehicles of the human experience. I learned about the professional dimensions of the art historical field through an internship restoring and cataloguing plaster casts of sculptures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mason was unique at the time for offering an interdisciplinary study-abroad program
in Senegal. The skills I gained served me years later when I was studying Arabic and performing doctoral fieldwork in Egypt, and when I co-organized a conference panel and networked with scholars at a conference in Ghana.