Roxanne Goldberg

Roxanne Goldberg is a PhD candidate in History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. Her research examines how discourses of race and religion are negotiated through collections and displays of material culture. She explores these questions in her dissertation, "Selling and Salvaging 'the Orient': An American History of Islamic Art, ca. 1870–1930." Situating micro-historical episodes of collecting, classifying, displaying, studying, and otherwise engaging with Islamic art within religious and political contexts at municipal and global scales, Roxanne's dissertation reveals the surprising story of how Islamic art was instrumentalized in the service of competing American identities and ideologies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Roxanne has previously held curatorial research positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.