Holly Edwards

Areas of Expertise

I am, by training, an historian of Islamic art. That means that I am a generalist in the classroom, teaching courses that range from painting to architecture and from Spain to India. More specifically, I am interested in the cracks between cultures and the genesis of new traditions.  These two themes underlie seemingly diverse projects:  a survey of tomb architecture in the Indus Valley, a consideration of portraiture and iconoclasm, and work on cross-cultural perception and representation.  Recently, my work has taken the form of museum exhibitions:  Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: American Orientalism 1870-1930 (Princeton University Press, 2000) at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown; Through Afghan Eyes at the Asia Society in New York (co-curator));  Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain,  co-curator, (University of Chicago Press, 2007) at the Williams College Museum of Art.