Silvia Naef

Silvia Naef is a Professor in the Department of Arab Studies at the University of Geneva, specializing in the cultural history of the Arab world. Her research focuses on the evolution of modern and contemporary Arab art, particularly in Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq, challenging Eurocentric interpretations of artistic modernity. She co-founded the Independent Platform for Modern and Contemporary Flemish Studies (PIE.FMC) and leads projects like 'Border Subjectivities' and 'Disagreements: Crossing Borders in the Mediterranean.'

Naef has organized seminal academic events, including a 1999 seminar in Istanbul on visual representations in Arab societies and co-organized a three-year research seminar on 'other modernities' with Irene Maffi and Wendy Shaw. Her work critiques the Orientalist lens applied to Arab art, advocating for contextually grounded analyses of pioneering Arab artists. She supervises doctoral students, including Nadia Radwan and Alice Bombardier, whose research reconstructs archival materials on Egyptian modern art and explores Iranian painting history respectively.

Her contributions include groundbreaking publications like In Search of an Arab Modernity and What is a Question of the Image in Islam?. Despite limited institutional support, she remains a driving force in expanding European academic engagement with Arab art history, emphasizing post-identity feminisms and inter-epistemic dialogues.