Professor, The Calderwood Chair in Fine Arts
(Jointly held)
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1980
Devlin Hall 433
617-552-8595
sheila.blair@bc.edu
Fields of Interest
Islamic art, especially the arts of Iran and Central Asia, the art and architecture produced under the Mongols, calligraphy and books.
Academic Profile
Professor Blair teaches about all aspects of Islamic art from the seventh century to modern times. She offers surveys on Islamic art, architecture, and urbanism as well as research seminars on the Silk Road, the Islamic book, and the arts of Iran. Her research is equally broad: she has written ten books, including several international award-winners, and more than 200 articles in journals, encyclopedias, colloquia and festscriften. Several of her books were written with her husband and co-professor, Jonathan Bloom, with whom she served as artistic consultant to the three-hour documentary Islam: Empire of Faith, shown nationally on PBS.
Representative Publications
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Editor with Jonathan Bloom, Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, 3 vols (New York: Oxford, 2009).
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Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), winner of the 2007 British-Kuwait Friendship Society/British Society of Middle Eastern Studies Prize and the 2008 World Prize for Book of the Year by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance; selected as a 2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.
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Co-author with Jonathan Blook, Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen (Chestnut Hill, MA: McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, 2006).
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Co-author with Jonathan Bloom, Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power (New York: TV Books, 2000; reprint with corrections London: BBC Books, 2001; paperback New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
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Islamic Inscriptions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); winner of the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize for the best book on Middle Eastern studies published in Britain, 1999.
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Co-author with Jonathan Bloom, Islamic Arts (London: Phaidon, 1997); Japanese trans. by T. Masuya (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2001).
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A Compendium of Chronicles: Rashid al-Din's Illustrated History of the World, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, vol. XXVII, ed. Julian Raby (London: The Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1995); winner of the Bahari Prize for the best book on Persian civilization, 1998.
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Co-author with Jonathan Bloom, The Art and Architecture of Islam: 1250-1800, Pelican History of Art (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994; reprinted with corrections 1995); Spanish translation by María Condor, Arte y Arquitecture del Islam 1250-1800 (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1999).
