Alex Dika Seggerman

Is there an art history of American Islam? Historically, Islamic art history focused on lands far outside the Americas. My book project, “Art Histories of American Islam,” challenges the field’s boundaries by exploring four centuries of material and visual culture of Islam in the United States. It will begin by recovering the material histories of enslaved people of Muslim West African origin. Chapter two analyzes the imagery of twentieth-century Black Muslim movements like the Nation of Islam. Chapter three explores a group of New York-based women artists of Muslim heritage, including Shirin Neshat, Ghada Amer, and Shahzia Sikander. Lastly, the project investigates vernacular mosque architecture in Northern New Jersey. Overall, this project exposes the longevity of Muslim material culture, visual culture, fine arts, and architecture in the United States, arguing that American Islamic art history has been a small yet constitutive part of American art history for centuries.