Jonathan Bloom

Norma Jean Calderwood Chair Of Islamic and Asian Art
(Jointly Held)

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1980

Devlin Hall 433
617-552-8595
jonathan.bloom@bc.edu



Fields of Interest
Islamic art and architecture, the history of paper, art in the medieval Mediterranean world.

Academic Profile
Professor Bloom teaches courses on the history of Islamic art and architecture. He also offers undergraduate seminars on the arts of medieval Spain and the history of the city of Jerusalem. His research has explored the history and development of the minaret as well as the history of paper. He has written several books with Sheila S. Blair, his wife and co-holder of the Calderwood Chair, with whom he also served as principal consultant to the 3-hour documentary Islam: Empire of Faith, shown nationally on PBS. He is currently at work on a book-length study of the art and architecture of North Africa and Egypt produced under the Fatimid dynasty between the tenth century and the twelfth.

Publications

• Arts of the City Victorious: The Art and Architecture of the Fatimids (I.B. Tauris, in preparation).
• Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World (Yale University Press, 2001). Winner of the Charles Rufus Morey Award (2003) of the College Art Association, and honorable mention for the Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, the Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, all 2002.
• Early Islamic Art and Architecture [The Forming of the Classical Islamic World: 600-950, series ed. L. Conrad] (Ashgate, 2002).
• Minaret: Symbol of Islam. [Oxford Studies in Islamic Art VII] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
  

Co-written with Sheila Blair

• Islam: A Thousand Years of Power and Faith (New York: TV Books, 2000).
• Islamic Arts (London: Phaidon, 1997).
• The Art and Architecture of Islam: 1250 - 1800. The Pelican History of Art. (London: Yale University Press, 1994).
• Images of Paradise in Islamic Art, illustrated catalogue of an exhibition at the Hood Museum, Asia Society, etc. (Hanover, NH, 1991).

Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair	Paper before Print Jonathan Bloom	The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800 Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair