Reorienting Medieval Art History on the North-South Axis through Training in West African Archaeology and Arabic

Trained in Western medieval and Byzantine art history, I seek a Mellon New Directions fellowship for instruction in sub-Saharan archeology with a focus on West Africa and Arabic. This retraining is critical to my new research orientation towards the North-South axis of interregional exchange during the European Middle Ages (ca. 300-ca. 1500). This retraining will bring new materials and questions into my own research. Equally importantly, it will enable me to work towards a larger change in art history through three key areas of intervention: developing new methods that can treat cultures with and without written histories more equitably; offering training in these methods and an expanded art historical record to the next generation of scholars; and developing public-facing resources aimed at spreading this material beyond the limits of a specialized research community.