Francesca Leoni, Postdoctoral Fellow
Francesca Leoni joined Rice University from Princeton University, where she earned her PhD in July 2008. Previously, Francesca studied in Naples, Italy (BA Istituto Universitario Orientale), and was a visiting student at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1998-1999) and Harvard University (2006). While a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Art History, Francesca will also serve as assistant curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to create the nucleus of a collection of Islamic art and organize exhibitions on different aspects of the artistic production originating in the Islamic world.
Her research interests include the arts of the book in the Islamic world; cross-cultural exchanges between the Muslim and the European and Far Eastern worlds; figurative art in the Persian-speaking region from antiquity to present, contemporary art from the Middle East, and Islamic aesthetics. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled “The Revenge of Ahriman: Images of Divs in the Shahnama, ca. 1300-1600” focused on images of demons (divs), which were taken as a case-study in order to explore the intersection between ugliness and wickedness in pre and early-modern Iranian art.
In 2007-2008 Francesca was recipient of Sylvan and Pamela Coleman Memorial Fund Art History Fellowship from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also received fellowships from Princeton University (Graduate School, Lee Fund, Department of Art and Archaeology, and Department of Near Eastern Studies) and the Princeton Institute for Regional Studies.
Her recent publications include her undergraduate dissertation (Metallurgy and Metalwork in the Economy of Central Asia from the 7th Century to the 14th Century, Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale, Series Minor; forthcoming); “Picturing Evil: Images of Divs and the Reception of the Shahnama” in Shahnama Studies II, edited by Charles Melville (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 2009), “The Human in the Monster: Changes in Demonic Imagery in 14th-16th Century Persian Painting,” in Monsters and the Monstrous. Proceedings of the 5th Global Conference, 17-20 September, Mansfield College, Oxford, edited by Marlin Bates (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2008); and catalogue entries in Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797, edited by Stefano Carboni (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). She is currently working on an article about the depiction of demons and their symbolism in the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, and researching the subject of eroticism and homoeroticism in the context of Islamic art, which is also the theme of a panel she will chair at the 2009 conference of the College Art Association.
Office Location: Herring Hall 116
Office Phone: 713-348-6784
Email: francesca.leoni@rice.edu