Lyla Halsted Assistant Professor of Art

My first semester as a student at Davidson, I enrolled in an art history course on the visual culture of the Islamic world having had no prior exposure to art history. I was quickly captivated by the notion of approaching a remarkably widespread and diverse religious tradition from the perspective of its artistic production, especially given the misunderstandings about both Islam and its relationship to visual culture that abound today. I felt a particular thrill in analyzing pre-modern images and artifacts and continue to be drawn to unravelling the mysteries of their production, reception, and intended use.

Having completed my doctorate at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, I am delighted to return to Davidson as a faculty member. In teaching courses on Islamic visual culture, I hope to instill in my students feelings of wonder and intellectual curiosity similar to those I felt as an undergraduate. My courses challenge students to explore cross-cultural networks of exchange, consider nuanced understandings of gender in Islamic societies, and explore the complexities of religious and cultural identity as expressed through visual culture. I am passionate about my teaching, and I find great joy in working with students.

My current research project explores medieval Islamic material culture as a nexus between practices of healing and protection rooted in magical and medical traditions. My research focuses on artifacts and images from the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, with a particular focus on Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Arabia. As amulets, talismans, or magic-medicinal vessels, these types of artifacts have traditionally been omitted from the canon of Islamic art, largely due to their esoteric imagery and inscriptions and their mass production outside of a courtly context. I explore the importance of embodied engagement and materiality in popular magic-medicinal practices of the premodern world.