Madhuri Desai

Madhuri Desai is an Associate Professor of Art History and Asian Studies at Penn State University, located in the 221 Arts Building. Her research focuses on South Asian architectural and urban history, particularly the Early Modern and colonial periods. She holds the 2019 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award for her monograph Banaras Reconstructed, which examines the evolution of Banaras from the 16th to 20th centuries. Current projects include Creating the Mughal Temple (exploring temple architecture in Amber, Brindavan, and Orchha) and studies of Maratha-era urban design. She teaches graduate courses on South Asian architecture and surveys on Asian art and Islamic architecture.

Madhuri has received fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Social Science Research Council, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Her work intersects art historiography with Early Modern South Asian painting and knowledge systems.