Nebahat Avcioglu

Nebahat Avcioglu is a Professor of Art History and Middle Eastern Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, with additional appointments at the Graduate Center of CUNY in Classics, MEMEAC, and the PhD Program in Art History. She specializes in cross-cultural artistic interactions between Europe and the Islamic world, with particular focus on the Ottoman Empire from the 17th century to the present.

Her research centers on the dissemination and transformation of artistic forms and material practices, theories of artistic contact, and socio-political aspects of art and architectural history. Key research areas include Islamic Art and Architectural History, Urban Studies and the Islamic City, Imperialism and Orientalism, Histories of Collecting and Museums, The Global 18th Century, Modernism in the Middle East, and The Modern and Contemporary Mosque.

Avcioglu's publications reveal consistent scholarly engagement with the politics of representation, cross-cultural artistic exchange, and architectural identity formation. Her work demonstrates particular expertise in Ottoman-European artistic interactions, mosque architecture in Western contexts, and the visual culture of the long 18th century.

• Turquerie and the Politics of Representation (2011, 2016; Turkish translation 2014)
• Globalising Cultures. Art and Mobility in the Eighteenth Century (co-edited with Finbarr Barry Flood, 2011)
• The Culture of Albums in the 18th Century (2018)
• Artistic Practices and Cultural Transfer in Early Modern Italy (co-edited with Allison Sherman, 2015)
• Architecture, Art and Identity in Venice and its Territories (co-edited with Emma Jones, 2013)

Before joining Hunter College in 2011, Professor Avcioglu held faculty and research positions at Cambridge, Manchester, Harvard, Oxford, Dumbarton Oaks, Sciences-Po Paris, and Columbia University. She served as Visiting Professor at MIT and at the Institut d'Études de l'Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman (IISMM) as well as at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). She currently serves on editorial boards for the 'Traces' series of De Gruyter, Journal18, and Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide.