From July the Israeli historian Avinoam Shalem
to be director of the American Academy in Rome

Starting from July, the Israeli historian and educator Avinoam Shalev is the 24th Director of the prestigious American Academy in Rome. He is currently the Riggio Professor for the Arts of Islam in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. He studied at the University of Tel Aviv and the University of Munich before earning a PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1995.
Shalem specializes in the history of Islamic art, with a strong emphasis on Arab art in the Mediterranean Basin, the Near East, and the Levant, as well as in Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily. He also focuses on the art of the object, including secular and sacred aesthetics, as well as Jewish, Christian, and Islamic artistic interactions in the Mediterranean. He is no stranger to the Academy, with which he already collaborated.

“The Academy is very fortunate to have a scholar of Avinoam Shalem’s caliber providing a fresh and varied perspective as director,” said the AAR President and CEO Mark Robbins. “His academic achievements, intellectual generosity, and global approach to scholarship make him an ideal choice.”
“I am extremely pleased and excited to work with the international community at the American Academy in Rome,” said Dr. Shalem. “I very much look forward to continuing the Academy’s long tradition of promoting innovative thinking by encouraging an interdisciplinary approach that examines in-between zones, such as those between art and art history, history and prose, music and philosophy, and architecture and archeology.”
Dr. Shalem is currently the Riggio Professor for the Arts of Islam in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. He studied at the University of Tel Aviv and the University of Munich before earning a PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1995.
Shalem specializes in the history of Islamic art, with a strong emphasis on Arab art in the Mediterranean Basin, the Near East, and the Levant, as well as in Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily. He also focuses on the art of the object, including secular and sacred aesthetics, as well as Jewish, Christian, and Islamic artistic interactions in the Mediterranean. He is no stranger to the Academy, with which he already collaborated.
He succeeds John Ochsendorf who will return to his faculty position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after his three-year term ends in June. The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome and is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.