Zainab Bahrani

Zainab Bahrani
Zainab Bahrani
Born (1962-08-29) 29 August 1962 (age 62)
Baghdad, Iraq
EducationNew York University Institute of Fine Arts (MA, PhD)
Occupation(s)Edith Porana Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology
EmployerColumbia University
AwardsJames Henry Breasted Prize (2009)[1]

Zainab Bahrani (Arabic: زينب البحراني; born 29 August 1962) is an Iraqi Assyriologist and is Edith Porada Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at Columbia University.[2] She was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. In 2019 she was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship; she previously held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003. In 2009 she was awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize. Her book The Graven Image demonstrated "a complete overturning of Eurocentric representations of the cultural and artistic legacies of ancient Assyria and Babylonia".

Early life and education

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A native of Baghdad, Iraq, she was educated in Europe and the United States. She received her Master of Arts and doctoral degrees (Ph.D. 1989) in art history and archeology from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts.[2]

Career

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Prior to her appointment at Columbia University, Bahrani taught at the University of Vienna in Austria, State University of New York at Stony Brook, and was a curator in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Near Eastern Antiquities Department from 1989 to 1992.[3] She was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford for 2010–11.[4] On May 25, 2004, Bahrani was appointed to work with the Coalition Provisional Authority as Senior Consultant for Culture.[5] She stated that her objective was to continue the reconstruction of the Iraq National Museum and the Iraq National Library.[6] She also worked to restore documents to the National Archives of Iraq.[7]

Bahrani has written widely on ancient near eastern art. Her book The Infinite Image was described by Matthew Canepa as a tool for "advocacy of the relevance of ancient Near Eastern art to contemporary art historical discourse, programs, and museums".[8] In Scramble for the Past, edited by Bahrani, she also wrote a chapter which described how Ottoman and European colonial powers used the Assyrian past to meet their own "ideological goals".[9] In reviewing The Graven Image archaeologist Jeremy Tanner described how Bahrani's book demonstrated "a complete overturning of Eurocentric representations of the cultural and artistic legacies of ancient Assyria and Babylonia", compounding the notion that the idea of 'Mesopotamia' itself is a colonial product.[10] Bahrani's book The Ritual Body was reviewed by Carolyn Nakamura, who described it as "an illuminating and theoretically rich consideration of Assyro-Babylonian war and violence".[11]

Awards and recognition

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Bahrani was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.[12] In 2019 she "was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship; she previously held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003.[13] In 2009 she was awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize.[14]

Selected works

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  • Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia (Routledge, 2001)
  • The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003)
  • Rituals of War: The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia (New York, 2008)
  • Zainab Bahrani, Zeynep Çelik, and Edhem Eldem, eds. Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire. (Istanbul: SALT, 2011)
  • The Infinite Image: Art, Time and the Aesthetic Dimension in Antiquity (Reaktion Books, 2014)

References

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  1. ^ "James Henry Breasted Prize Recipients | AHA".
  2. ^ a b "Zainab Bahrani". Columbia University Department of Art History & Archaeology. Retrieved 9 May 2022.
  3. ^ "Zainab Bahrani | SOF/Heyman Profile". SOF/Heyman. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  4. ^ "Oxford Slade Professors, 1870–present" (PDF). University of Oxford. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  5. ^ "Iraq's Ministry of Culture takes reins from Coalition Provisional Authority as Zainab Bahrani is elected as senior consultant". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 2004-06-30. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  6. ^ Bahrani, Zainab (2013-05-26). "In 2003, Bagdad's National Library was reduced to rubble—and changed my life and Iraqi society forever". Document Journal. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  7. ^ Jussawalla, Feroza; Omran, Doaa (2021-03-31). Memory, Voice, and Identity: Muslim Women's Writing from across the Middle East. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-36736-2.
  8. ^ Canepa, Matthew P. (2015-10-02). "Zainab Bahrani, The Infinite Image: Art, Time and the Aesthetic Dimension in Antiquity: London: Reaktion Books, 2014. 240 pp.; 80 color ills., 30 b/w. $49.00". The Art Bulletin. 97 (4): 452–454. doi:10.1080/00043079.2015.1082355. ISSN 0004-3079.
  9. ^ Hart, Kimberly (2016). "Zainab Bahrani, Zeynep Çelik, and Edhem Eldem, eds. Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul: SALT, 2011. 520 pages, 177 color illustrations. Cloth US$79.99 ISBN-10: 9944731277". Review of Middle East Studies. 50 (2): 198–199. doi:10.1017/rms.2016.149. ISSN 2151-3481.
  10. ^ Tanner, Jeremy (2006-03-01). "Statues and societies in the ancient world - Zainab Bahrani. The Graven Image: representation in Babylonia and Assyria. x+242 pages, 28 figures. 2003. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press; 0-8122-3648-3 hardback $49.95 & £30. - P.R.S. Moorey. Idols of the People: miniature images of clay in the ancient Near East. xi+98 pages, 18 illustrations. 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 0-19-726280-5 hardback £17.99. - Peter Stewart. Statues in Roman Society: representation and response. xvi+333 pages, 48 figures. 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 0-19-924094-9 hardback £65. - Mary Stieber. The Poetics of Appearance in the Attic Korai. xv+230 pages, 47 figures. 2004. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press; 0-292-70180-2 hardback $45 & £34.50. - Katerina Karakasi. Archaic Korai. 470 pages, 24 figures, 278 b&w & colour plates, 14 tables. 2003. Los Angeles (CA): J. Paul Getty Museum; 0-89236-699-0 hardback £95". Antiquity. 80 (307): 210–214. doi:10.1017/S0003598X0009339X. ISSN 0003-598X.
  11. ^ Nakamura, Carolyn (2009). "Rituals of War: the Body and Violence in Mesopotamia, by Zainab Bahrani, 2008. Brooklyn (NY): Zone Books; ISBN 978-1-890951-84-9 hardback £24.95 & US32.95; 276 pp., 40 figs". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 19 (3): 461–462. doi:10.1017/S0959774309000730. ISSN 0959-7743.
  12. ^ "Zainab Bahrani". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2021-01-08.
  13. ^ "Zainab Bahrani". carnegie.org. Archived from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2024.
  14. ^ "James Henry Breasted Prize Recipients | AHA".
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