Holly Shaffer

Holly Shaffer is an Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University, specializing in 18th- and 19th-century art and architecture of South Asia, Britain, and the British Empire. Her research examines artistic exchanges between Maratha rulers and British officials in Western India, focusing on how art facilitated diplomacy, warfare, and cultural hybridity. She is affiliated with Brown’s Center for Contemporary South Asia, Center for Middle East Studies, and Food Studies program, and holds a fellowship in the Society of Fellows at Rare Book School, University of Virginia.

Shaffer’s first book, Grafted Arts (2022), won the Historians of British Art Book Award and the Edward Cameron Dimock Jr. Prize. Her current projects include a second book on food’s role in artistic production and co-curating an exhibition on East India Company artists. She teaches courses on South Asian art, food and art in the early modern world, and 19th-century art history, often incorporating museum collaborations with institutions like the Met and RISD Museum.

Her research interests span visual and material culture, print and sensory culture, and the migration of artistic forms across media. Notable awards include the Getty-ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Frances Blanshard Prize for her doctoral work.