Ann Shafer, PhD

Education

MArch, Rhode Island School of Design
PhD, Harvard University

Biography

Dr. Ann Shafer ("Dr. Ann") is an art historian and designer, and a member of the department since 2013. She specializes in the arts of the ancient Near East and the Early Islamic world, and has published widely on the subject, with a special focus on ornament, color, and artisanal technologies in architecture and the arts of the written word.

At FIT, Dr. Shafer teaches courses on the ancient Mediterranean (HA121), Islamic Art (HA126), and the winter travel session to North Africa. She believes in contextualizing art within broader historical trajectories and contemporary cultural practices. Among the related issues discussed in her courses are gender, race, the environment and sustainability, education, and politics. As a designer, she operates in the intersection of design and social activism, working within heritage communities and on behalf of traditional artisans.

Selected Publications

"Image and Object in Islam: On the Ka’bah and Its Popular Representations," 63-75 in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture, eds. Hussein Rashid and Kristian Petersen. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2023.

Testing the Canon of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology. Co-edited by Ann Shafer and Amy Gansell. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2020). Specific chapters also authored by Ann Shafer: "Perspectives on the Ancient Near Eastern Canon: More than Mesopotamia’s Greatest Hits" 1-41; and "The Ancient Near Eastern Canon in the University Classroom and Beyond: My Colleagues Speak" 274-296.

"No Man is an Island:  Globalization and Resilience in the Fez zillij Tradition" Journal of North African Studies 24 (2019): 758-785.

"Emotional Architecture: Cairo’s Sha’ar Hashamayim Synagogue and Symbolism’s Global Reach" in Synagogues in the Islamic World: Architecture, Design and Identity, ed. M. Gharipour; 94-124. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. 

"Re-Envisioning Information: The Maps We Make of Ancient Assyrian Palaces" in How Do We Want the Past to Be? On Methods and Instruments of Visualizing the Ancient Reality, eds. D. Nadali and M. Micale; 77-88. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2015.

"The Present in Our Past:  The Assyrian Rock Reliefs at Nahr el-Kalb and the Lessons of Tradition" in Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Rome 4-8 July 2011, eds. A. Archi and A. Bramanti; 491-499. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015.

Corps, image et perception de l’espace:  de la Mésopotamie au monde Classique. Co-edited by Ann Shafer and Nicolas Gillman. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2014.

"Sacred Geometries:  The Dynamics of ‘Islamic’ Ornament in Jewish and Coptic Old Cairo" in Sacred Precincts: Non-Muslim Religious Sites in Islamic Territories," M. Gharipour; 158-177. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

"Cairo to Canton and Back:  Tradition and Identity in the Islamic Vernacular" in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World, eds. M. Gharipour and I. C. Schick; 499-514. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.

"The Assyrian Landscape as Ritual" in Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art, eds. B. Brown and M. H. Feldman; 713-740. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013.

Courses

• HA 121 Cities and Civilizations: The Eastern Mediterranean World, c. 3000 BCE-1000 CE
• HA 226 Art and Civilization of the Islamic World
• HA 238 Art and Design in Morocco