Lamia Balafrej

Lamia Balafrej is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she specializes in the arts of the Islamic world, particularly focusing on the medieval and early modern periods across Middle East and North Africa.

Her research interests span multiple interconnected areas including Islamic art history, slavery studies, technology and labor relations, and visual and material culture of the premodern Islamicate world. Balafrej's work uniquely bridges historical analysis with contemporary concerns about technology, race, and labor exploitation.

Her publication record includes the monograph The Making of the Artist in Late Timurid Painting (Edinburgh University Press, 2019) and numerous articles on gender, slavery, and technology (2023), automated courtly slaves (2022), and domestic slavery and skin color (2021). Her current book project, Instrumental Figures, historicizes the relations of technology, enslavement, and difference in the premodern Islamicate Mediterranean and Southwest Asia.

• Rome Prize in Medieval Studies (2023)
• Getty Scholar Grant (2023)
• Donald and Maria Cox/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities Rome Prize Fellow (2022-23)

Her research has been supported by prestigious institutions including the American Academy in Rome, the Getty Research Institute, the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution. Balafrej's work connects historical analysis of medieval Islamic art with contemporary discussions about technology, labor, and race, offering critical perspectives on the enduring legacies of slavery and technological development.