EVA R. HOFFMAN
Dept. of Art and Art History
Tufts University
11 Talbot Avenue
Medford, MA 02155
[email protected]
(617) 627-5287
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University
M.A. Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University
B.A. magna cum laude, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Phi Beta Kappa; Art History Prize
RECENT FELLOWSHIPS and HONORS
Fellow, Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College, 2010-11
Fellow, Aga Khan Program of Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard University, December 2003September 2004
POSITIONS HELD
Tufts University, Assistant Professor of Art History, Fall 2011-present
Courses: Art, Ritual and Culture; Art, Politics and Culture; Islamic Art; Painting in Islamic
Art; The Art of the Medieval Mediterranean World; Iconoclasm and Iconophobia; The
Portable Arts; Artistic Exchange in the Mediterranean; Orientalism and the Visual Arts;
Theories and Methods in Art History.
Tufts University, Associate Professor of Art History (NTT) and Coordinator of the Art History
Survey Course (Art, Ritual and Culture and Art, Politics and Culture), 2001-2011
Tufts University, Director, Middle Eastern Studies Program, Fall 2007-Spring 2010
Founding Program Faculty Member, 2000-present
Tufts University, Assistant Professor of Art History and Coordinator of Survey Course, 1990-2001
Harvard University, Visiting Associate Professor of Art History, Spring 2002
Islamic Painting and the Portable Arts
Harvard University, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History, Fall 1995
Islamic Painting and the Portable Arts
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Harvard University, Extension School, Fall 1989 and 1982-85
Early Islamic Art (1989) and Introduction to the History of Art (1982-85)
Rhode Island School of Design, Assistant Professor of Art History, 1985-1988
Courses in Ancient, Medieval, and Islamic Art
Wellesley College, Visiting Assistant Professor, Survey of Islamic Art, 1983
CURRENT WRITING AND RESEARCH
The Space of Exchange: Art and Culture in the Mediterranean World (c. 950-1250). Book Project.
Early Arabic Manuscript Culture (ninth-thirteenth centuries)
Iconoclasm from antiquity to the present
PUBLICATIONS
Edited Book:
Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Mediterranean World. An anthology of critical essays,
Blackwell Press, 2007.
Articles:
“Transculturation in the Eastern Mediterranean”, co-authored with Scott Redford, Companion to
Islamic Art, ed. Finbarr B. Flood and Gulru Necipoglu, Wiley-Blackwell Press, 2014
(forthcoming).
“Translating Image and Text in the Medieval Mediterranean World between the Tenth and
Thirteenth Centuries” Medieval Encounters 18 (2012): 584-623.
“Translation in Ivory: Interactions Across Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean during the
Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries” Siculo-Arabic Ivories, ed. David Knipp, Hirmer Verlag, 2011,
99-122.
“Between East and West: The Wall Paintings of Samarra and The Construction of Abbasid
Princely Culture,” Muqarnas, 25 (2008): 107-132.
“Christian-Islamic Encounters on Thirteenth-Century Ayyubid Metalwork: Local Culture,
Authenticity and Memory,” Gesta XLIII/2 (2004): 129-42.
Review of Rosamond Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, Islamic Trade and the Italian Renaissance, 13001600, University of California Press, 2002, Middle East Journal, 56, no. 4, Fall, 2002 and in CAA
Reviews, October, 2003. http://www.caareviews.org/
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“Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian interchange from the tenth through the twelfth
century,” Art History 24 no. 1 (2001): 17-50.
“The Classical Tradition and the Illustrated Arabic Book,” in Die Gegenwart des Altertums. Formen
und Funktionen des Altertumsbezugs in den Hochkulturen der Alten Welt, ed. Dieter Kuhn and Helga
Stahl, Universität Würzburg, Heidelberg: Edition Forum, 2001, 357-373.
“The Beginnings of the Illustrated Arabic Book: An Intersection between Art and Scholarship,”
Muqarnas 17 (2000): 37-52.
“A Fatimid Book Cover: Framing and Reframing Cultural Identity in the Medieval Mediterranean
World,” L’Égypte Fatimide: son art et son histoire, Paris: Université Paris-Sorbonne, 1999, 403-420.
"Islamic Painted Illustration: Before 1000," Grove Dictionary of Art, New York, Grove, 1996.
"Islamic Scientific and Technical Illustration," Grove Dictionary of Art, New York, Grove, 1996.
"The Author Portrait in Thirteenth-Century Arabic Manuscripts: A New Islamic Context for a LateAntique Tradition," Muqarnas, 10 (1993): 6-20.
Published Dissertation:
"The Emergence of Illustration in Arabic Manuscripts: Classical Legacy and Islamic
Transformation," Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1982 (UMI Press, 1983).
SELECTED LECTURES AND PAPERS
“A Mediterranean Perspective on the Art of the Crusades”, Art of the Crusades: A ReEvaluation. An international research travel seminar in Turkey, exploring the connections
between the cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Getty Foundation, Connecting Art
Histories, June 27-July 7, 2015.
“Mediterranean Discourses and the Taming of Islamic Art”, Mediterranean Studies Program,
University of Colorado, Boulder, March 11, 2015.
“What Can the Visual Arts Tell Us About the Medieval Mediterranean World?” University of
Colorado, March 10, 2015.
“The Meeting of Holiness and Commerce: Expanding Boundaries in the Medieval
Mediterranean World”, Keynote Lecture, Tesserae: Symposium in memory of Gustav Kühnel,
Tel Aviv University, December 17, 2014.
“Islamic Art, Art History and Mediterranean Genealogies”, Lecture Series. Islamic Art:
Disrupting Unity and Discerning Ruptures, Columbia University, Department of Art History and
Archaeology, November 13, 2014.
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“Connections Far and Wide: Translating Art and Culture in the Medieval Mediterranean World,”
The Daniel H. Silberberg Lecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, March 11, 2014.
“Translating Scientific Knowledge: Exchange of Image and Text in Greek and Arabic
Manuscripts,” The Middle Ages in Translation, Mellon Symposium, July 15-19, 2013,
Northwestern University.
“The Geography of Mediterranean Visual Identities,” The Mediterranean and Maritime
Perspectives, Symposium of The Mediterranean Seminar, May 2-4, 2013, University of
California, at Santa Cruz.
“Uncertain Identities: How to Study Objects of the Medieval Mediterranean World,” Aga Khan
Program Lecture Series: A Forum for Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard University,
February 7, 2013.
“The Space of Exchange: Shaping Visual Culture and Identity in the Medieval Mediterranean,”
Romanesque and the Mediterranean, Conference of the British Archaeological Association,
Palermo, Italy, April 16-19, 2012.
“Locating Identity in the Art of the Medieval Mediterranean World,” Cornell University,
March 26, 2012.
Discussant, “Art and Exchange”, Graduate Student Symposium, Department of Art History,
Tufts University, March 10, 2012
“The Circulation of Text and Image in the Medieval Mediterranean World,” Symposium,
Mechanisms of Exchange: Transmission, Scale, and Interaction in the Arts and Architecture of
the Medieval Mediterranean, 1000-1500, The Newberry Library, Chicago, February 25, 2011.
“Networks of Artistic Exchange in the Medieval Mediterranean World,” Newhouse Center for
the Humanities, November 2010, Wellesley College.
“Globalization: the Art of the Mediterranean and Art History,” Colloquium on Disputing the
Global, Department of Art and Art History, Tufts University, October 29, 2010.
Discussant, “ Questioning Cultural Influence in the Medieval Mediterranean: Artistic Production
in a Hybrid Culture”, Conference of the College Art Association (CAA), Chicago, Feb. 11, 2010.
“Cultural Translation: Mediating Visual Exchange and Shaping Identity in the Medieval
Mediterranean World,” The Medieval and Renaissance Forum, Yale University, January 28,
2010.
Discussant, “Return to the Source: Northern Mesopotamia as a Centre of Material Culture in the
Eastern Christian World,” Annual Meeting Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA), Nov.
23, 2009.
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“Exchange and Translation: Considering Local and Global Dimensions in Shaping Visual
Culture in the Medieval Mediterranean”, The David and Alfred Smart Lecture, Department of
Art History, University of Chicago, November 12, 2009.
“The Samarra Dancers: The Role of Archeological Drawings in Defining Abbasid Style”,
Spaces and Visions, Historians of Islamic Art conference, University of Pennsylvania, October
16-19, 2008.
“The Late Antique Context for the Synagogue Mosaics at Hammam Lif, Tunisia” in conjunction
with the exhibition at Boston College, May 4, 2008.
“A Market for Luxury: Cross-Media Exchange in the Mediterranean between the 11th and 12th
centuries,” Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting 1100-1300, Museum für Islamische
Kunst, Berlin, 6-8 July 2007.
“Fashioning Visual Culture in the Mediterranean” in the session “On the Move—Portable
Objects”, 21st Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21-26 August, 2006.
“Christian-Islamic Encounters before the Renaissance,” Symposium, Cultural Encounters in the
Mediterranean, in conjunction with the exhibition, Gentile Bellini and the East, Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum, Boston, Massachusetts, March 11, 2006.
“The Portable Arts in Islamic and Christian Realms in the Mediterranean between the Tenth and
Thirteenth Centuries “ Portability and Desire: The Impact of Islamic Art and Technology on the
Italian Renaissance, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, May 13, 2004.
“Authenticity and Identity in Islamic-Crusader Visual Encounters,”, Aga Khan Program Lecture
Series: A Forum for Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard University, March 11, 2004.
“Mapping Visual Identity and Culture in the Mediterranean between the 10th and 13th
Centuries”, International Congress, Mediterranean Studies Association, Central European
University, Budapest, Hungary, May 28-31, 2003.
“Identity and Difference in Ayyubid Metalwork: Crusader-Islamic Visual Encounters in the
Context of Mediterranean Culture,” Encounters with Islam: The Medieval Mediterranean
Experience, Art, Material Culture, and Cultural Interchange, University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign, April, 2003.
“The Forbidden Image: The Second Commandment and Jewish Art and Culture” April, 21,
2002, in conjunction with the exhibition, Encountering the Second Commandment, Starr Gallery,
Jewish Community Center, Newton, MA.
“The Royal Palaces of the Alhambra and Cultural Identity”, Symposium, Medieval Spain: Land of
Three Cultures, Institute for Medieval Studies, The University of New Mexico, March, 2001.
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“Tradition and Innovation in the Art of Fatimid Egypt”, Invited lecture in Art History, University of
New Hampshire, Durham, November 28, 2000.
“An Ambiguous Biblical Prohibition: Changing Interpretations of the Second Commandment",
Jewish Artists Network, Boston, MA. November 12, 2000.
“The Pursuit of Ancient Scholarship and the Origins of the Illustrated Arabic Book,” international
symposium on the Presence of Antiquity, Universität Würzburg, 18-20 November 1999.
“Thirteenth-Century Islamic Metalwork : Mediation in Crusader-Islamic Relations,” Fifth
International Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Jerusalem
and Acre, 13-18 July 1999.
“Islamic Portable Arts: Mapping and Crossing Boundaries between the Tenth and Thirteenth
Centuries,” Aga Khan Program Lecture Series: A Forum for Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard
University, March 1999.
“An Ivory Book Cover: Islamic Book Design and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Medieval
Mediterranean World,” international symposium on Fatimid art, Colloque L’Égypte Fatimide,
Sorbonne, Paris, 28-30, May 1998.
“Implications of Portability in Islamic Art,” annual conference of the College Art Association,
Boston, February 23, 1996.
"Frontispieces for Arabic Manuscripts and the Late Antique Tradition," Aga Khan Program Lecture
Series: A Forum for Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard University, March, 1992.
"An Islamic Adaptation of Late Antique Book Design," annual conference of the College Art
Association, San Francisco, February, 1989."A Fatimid Drawing: Sources of Early Fatimid Art,”
conference of the American Research Center in Egypt, New York, 1978. Summary of paper in
Conference Abstracts.
SEMINARS
Art of the Crusades: A Re-Evaluation. A multi-part, two year international research travel
seminar with scholars from the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, exploring the connections
between the cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Getty Foundation, Connecting Art
Histories.
(1) Turkey: June 27-July 7, 2015.
(2) Greece: April 1-April 10, 2016
The Middle Ages in Translation, Mellon Symposium, Northwestern University, July 15-19,
2013. Directed by Barbara Newman. Participant in an interdisciplinary seminar on art, religion,
literature, and culture throughout the medieval world.
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CONFERENCES AND PROGRAMS ORGANIZED
Organizer and Chair, “Looking Widely, Looking Closely: Medieval Identities and Beyond”
Mosque/ Cathedral, Cathedral/ Mosque; Kalila Two Ways: East and West, Symposium of
Historians of Islamic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 18-20, 2012.
Moderator and Organizer, interdisciplinary faculty panel and community conversation, “The
Value of Art: The Place of Art in the University Today,” Department of Art History, Tufts
University, held at the Tufts Art Gallery March 26, 2009.
Moderator and Organizer, faculty panel, “Orientalism, Then and Now,” in conjunction with the
exhibition, Empire and its Discontents, September-December, 2008, Tufts University Art
Gallery, October 30, 2008.
Chair, session, “Boundaries in the Mediterranean World,” Conference of the Medieval Academy
of America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 31-April 2, 2006.
Co-chair with Oleg Grabar, double session, “Islamic Art and the Rest of the World”, Conference of
the College Art Association (CAA), Atlanta, GA, February 18-19, 2005.
Chair, session, “New Research in Islamic Art”, Conference of the Historians of Islamic Art,
Seattle Washington, February, 2004.
Chair, session, “The Discourse of the Gift in Islamic Art and Beyond,” Conference of the College Art
Association (CAA), Toronto, February 26, 1998.
Chair, session, “From Dura to Spain and Ashkenaz: The Visual Image in Jewish Late-Antique and
Medieval Art,” Conference of the College Art Association (CAA), Boston, February 22, 1996.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: Publications
“ARTIFACT: Mapping a Global Survey of the History of Art”, with Christine Cavalier, in
Teaching Art History with New Technologies, edited by Kelly Donahue-Wallace, Laetitia La
Follette, and Andrea Pappas, London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008, 79-96.
“ARTIFACT: An Interactive Software Program for the Survey of Art History,” Interactive
Learning: Vignettes of Best Practices from America’s Most Wired Campuses, ed. David G. Brown,
Bolton, MA, 2000.
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DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: Honors and Grants
APT Academic Technology Grant for Partnership in Technology, Tufts University, 2005-2006.
Nomination of ARTIFACT for the Tech Museum of Innovation 2001 Award: Technology Benefiting
Humanity.
Tufts University, AUDIT Grant and CENTA Fellowship for development of ARTIFACT image
database, 1998 and 1994.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: Conference Papers and Invited Presentations
“Concept Mapping for a Global Survey of the History of Art”, with Christine Cavalier, presented in a
session, Blending New Learning Technologies into Traditional Art Historical Instruction at the
Introductory Level, annual conference of the College Art Association, Atlanta, February, 18, 2005.
ARTIFACT, presentation at ARLIS, March, 2001.
“ARTIFACT” presentation at Teach/21C Technology Fair, Tufts University, October 16, 2000.
“ARTIFACT”, workshop given at a conference of the Center for Teaching Excellence, Tufts
University, School of Medicine, Dec. 10, 1999.
“The Taming of the Web: The Tufts University Digital Library,” with Barbara McMullen, Director
of Academic Technology at Tufts University, presented at the Syllabus Education Technology
Conference, November 11-14, 1999.
“ARTIFACT: An Art History Project at Tufts University,” conference of the American Association
of Higher Education, Washington D.C., March 19-22, 1999.
“Teaching with Technology,” panel participant at conference on Enhancing Classroom Teaching
with Multimedia, Tufts University, April 30, 1997.
“Where in the World is Caravaggio? The Use of Digitizeal Technology to Teach Art History."
Lecture at Symposium on Education and Technology, Tufts University, February, 1995.
EXHIBITIONS
Art History Faculty Curatorial Participant, “Global Flows”, an exhibition that examines "the global"
as both a historical phenomenon and a cross-cultural exchange of ideas, objects, and aesthetics, The
Tufts University Art Gallery, September 6 – November 18, 2012.
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Ancient Art from the Tufts Collection; Photography from the Tufts Collection (“Photography and
Painting,” and “Photography from the 1930s to the Present”). Annual exhibitions, Slater Concourse,
Tufts Art Gallery, in conjunction with the Art History Survey Courses, 1990-2000.
The Ethiopian Icon and Medieval Art, Slater Concourse, Tufts Art Gallery, in conjunction with
Survey Course, FAH 1, Fall 1996.
ARTIFACT, exhibited in In Light of Our Reflection, an exhibition on Art and Technology, Tufts Art
Gallery, Spring, 1995.
Co-Curator, "Islamic Decorative Arts from the Hofer Bequest and the Harvard Museum Collection Exhibition at the Fogg Art Museum, July through October, 1980. In collaboration with Michele de
Angelis. (Review, Christian Science Monitor, August 29, 1980).
PROFESSONAL SERVICE
Service as Officer and Committee Member, Professional Organizations
International Center of Medieval Art, 2011-2014
Member, Board of Directors
Advocacy Committee
Historians of Islamic Art,
Chair, Nominating Committee, 2011- 2013
President, 2003-2005
Member of Board of Directors, 2001-05
Member, Professional Organizations
College Art Association (CAA)
Historians of Islamic Art (HIAA)
Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA)
Medieval Academy of America
The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)
Art History Technology Consortium (AHPT)
Member, Editorial Board
Muqarnas, a journal for Islamic art
Palgrave Mediterranean Studies Series
Studies in Iconography
Outside Reader, Journals Art Bulletin, Medieval Encounters, Muqarnas, Gesta and Medieval
Globe
Brill Publishers, Visualizing the Middle Ages Series, Book Proposal, Norman
Palace in Palermo (2011)
Princeton University Press, book manuscripts on Islamic art
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Prentice Hall, Chapter on Islamic Art for Janson, History of Art (summer 2004)
and Stokstad, Art History (2010)
Blackwell-Wiley, Companion History for Romanesque and Gothic Art (2001)
Member, Dissertation Committee, Matthew Saba, “The Visual Culture of Abbasid Samarra”,
University of Chicago, 2010-2014. Defense June, 2014. PhD awarded Summer
2014.
Academic Advisory Board, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, International Center for Women,
Brandeis University, 2001-presents
Islamic Art Editor, CAA Reviews, 2005- 2008
Awards Committees and Grant Application Reviews
Graduate Student Prize Essay, ICMA, 2012
Samuel H. Kress Research Award Committee, ICMA, 2011
CAA Distinguished Teaching Award, 2005-2007
HIAA, Chair, Margaret B. Sevcenko Prize Committee for outstanding article in
Islamic Art by a young scholar, 2003-2005
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2001
Outside Reviewer, Tenure and Promotion in Islamic Art
Department of Art History, Tel Aviv University, 2007-2008
Department of Art History, Cornell University, 2005
Program Committee for Annual Conferences of Professional Organizations
Medieval Academy of America, Boston, 2006
Middle Eastern Studies Association, Washington DC, 2004
Chair, HIAA Committee on Art and Culture of Iraq, 2003-2005
Committee Member, CAA Art History Web Masters, 1999
TUFTS UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY SERVICE
Freshman Advisor, 2015-16
Freshman Advisor, 2014-15
Advisor and Liaison, Museum Studies Program, 2012-13
Committee, Review MA Candidate Applications, 2013
Director of Undergraduate Studies, 2001-2010
Faculty Advisor for Art History Society, 2005-2010
Undergraduate Education Sub-Committee and co-author of Report for Department
Review, Spring 2009
Member, Search Committee, Visual Resource Manager, Spring 2010
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Selection Committee, Madeline H. Caviness Prize for the outstanding senior thesis in Art
History, 2010, 2012
Faculty Coordinator for Information Technology, 1995-2007
Member, Search Committee, Medieval Art, 2007
Transfer Student Advisor, 1995-1996
Transfer of Credit Representative, Art History, 1994-1997
TUFTS UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Member, Academic Standing Committee, 2011-present
Member of Faculty Executive Committee for Phi Beta Kappa, 2001-present
Freshmen Advisor, 2011-12; 1997-99; 1990
Director, Program for Middle Eastern Studies and Member of Executive Committee of
Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2007-2010
Faculty Board Member, Interdisciplinary Minor in Multimedia and the Arts, 1997-2007
Digital Library Task Force; Digital Library Design Team 1999-2000
Committee on Media in Classrooms 1999-2000
Library Committee, 1990-93
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