Alisa Eimen, PhD

Education

• PhD in Art History from the University of Minnesota
• MA in Art History from the University of Minnesota
• MPhil from the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden, Netherlands
• BA in German from University of Alabama, Birmingham

Biography

Dr. Eimen studied Art History and German at the University of Alabama, Birmingham and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Minnesota, where she specialized in Islamic and South Asian studies. While completing her Ph.D., she also earned an M.Phil. from the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (Leiden, Netherlands) and completed a year-long curatorial internship at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She has been teaching Art History at Minnesota State University since 2005, covering a range of topics from ancient to modern art around the globe. Her research interests focus on the ways in which identity and memory shape art and architecture.

Recent Publications

“Mosque, Dome, Minaret: Ahmadiyya Architecture in Germany”, International Journal of Islamic Architecture 4:1 (2015): 109-136. Reprinted in Rethinking Place in South Asian and Islamic Art, 1500-Present. Ed. Deborah S. Hutton and Rebecca M. Brown. London & NY: Routledge, 2017. Pp.137-159.

“Reading Place through Patronage: Begum Samru’s Building Campaign in Early 19th-Century India”, in Woman’s Eye, Woman’s Hand: Making Art and Architecture in India, ed. D. F. Ruggles (New Delhi: Zubaan Press, 2014). 12-40.

“Shaping and Portraying Identity at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (1977-2005)”, in Performing the Iranian State, ed. Staci Gem Scheiwiller (London: Anthem Press, 2013). 83-99.