Olga Bush

Primary Academic Program: Art History

Biography:

Olga Bush’s research interests include medieval Muslim material culture within Mediterranean networks, Islamic architecture, European and American Orientalism, and cultural heritage and modern identities. She is the recipient of the Hagop Kevorkian Curatorial Fellowship and postdoctoral Coleman Research Fellowship in the Department of Islamic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art; two research fellowships at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz–Max-Planck-Institut; and grants from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between the Spanish Ministry and United States Universities and the Barakat Foundation. Professor Bush is the author of Reframing the Alhambra: Architecture, Poetry, Textiles, and Court Ceremonial (2018), a finalist for the 2019 College Art Association Charles Rufus Morey Book Award and the recipient of an honorable mention for the 2019 Eleanor Tufts Book Award from the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies. She is coeditor (with introduction and essay) of Gazing Otherwise: Modalities of Seeing in and beyond the Lands of Islam; and chapter contributor to Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Islamic Architecture on the Move: Motion and Modernity; And Diverse Are Their Hues: Color in Islamic Art and Culture; Pearls from Water, Rubies from Stone: Studies in Islamic Art in Honor of Priscilla Soucek; Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.); and Textile Terms: A Glossary. Additional publications include articles in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Muqarnas, International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and Gesta. She has presented at conferences in the United States, Spain, Bulgaria, and Italy. Bush previously taught at Vassar College and SUNY New Paltz.

MS, mechanical engineering, Kiev Polytechnic Institute, Ukraine; PhD, Islamic art history, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. At Bard since 2017.

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