Associate Professor, History of Art
cjgruber@umich.eduOffice Information:
phone: 734.764.5400
Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies; CMENAS Faculty; GISC Faculty; Global Islamic Studies Center; The Center for Emerging Democracies; CED Faculty Affiliates
Education/Degree:
PhD Islamic Art History, University of Pennsylvania, 2005; MA Islamic Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, 2001; BA Art History, Princeton University, 1998
Highlighted Work and Publications
Questioning the ‘Classical’ in Persian Painting: Models and Problems of Definition
Christiane Gruber
Name of Periodical: Journal of Art Historiography
Volume Number: 6
Year of Publication: 2012
Page Numbers: 1-25
The Missiri of Fréjus as Healing Memorial: Mosque Metaphors and the French Colonial Army (1928-1964)
Christiane Gruber
Name of Periodical: International Journal of Islamic Architecture
Volume Number: 1/1
Year of Publication: 2012
Page Numbers: 25-60
The Martyrs’ Museum in Tehran: Visualizing Memory in Post-Revolutionary Iran
Christiane Gruber
Name of Periodical: The Journal of Visual Anthropology
Volume Number: 25/1-2
Year of Publication: 2012
Page Numbers: 68-97
The ‘Restored’ Shi‘i Mushaf as Divine Guide?: The Practice of Fal-i Qur’an in the Safavid Period
Christiane Gruber
Name of Periodical: The Journal of Qur’anic Studies
Volume Number: 13/2
Year of Publication: 2011
Page Numbers: 29-55
Between Logos (Kalima) and Light (Nur): Representations of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Painting
Christiane Gruber
Name of Periodical: Muqarnas
Volume Number: 26
Year of Publication: 2009
Page Numbers: 1-34
The Image of the Prophet between Ideal and Ideology: A Scholarly Investigation
By crossing disciplinary boundaries in the field of the humanities, this volume aims to elucidate Muhammad’s visualization in the West vis-à-vis his image in Islam. It does so not by relegating materials to geographical and/or linguistic spheres or by separating texts from images. Rather, it seeks to place various articles in thematic and theoretical conversation so as to explore more broadly how the Prophet has been constructed, visualized, narrated, encountered, revised, adapted, and adopted in multiple cultural traditions, in European and American traditions and in the world of Islam...
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The Landscapes of 9/11: A Photographer's Journey
In the emotional aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, people from all walks of life created and encountered memorials to those who were murdered. Vernacular art appeared almost everywhere—on walls, trees, playgrounds, vehicles, houses, tombstones, and even on bodies. This outpouring of grief and other acts of remembrance impelled photographer Jonathan Hyman to document and so preserve these largely impermanent, spontaneous expressions. His collection of 20,000 photographs, along with field notes and personal interviews, constitutes a unique archive of 9/11 public memory.
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Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image
Christiane Gruber
This timely book examines the power and role of the image in modern Middle Eastern societies. The essays explore the role and function of image making to highlight the ways in which the images "speak" and what visual languages mean for the construction of Islamic subjectivities, the distribution of power, and the formation of identity and belonging. Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East addresses aspects of the visual in the Islamic world, including the presentation of Islam on television; on the internet and other digital media; in banners, posters, murals, and graffiti; and in ...
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The Ilkhanid Book of Ascension: A Persian-Sunni Devotional Tale
Christiane Gruber
Publisher: I.B. Tauris and British Institute for Persian Studies
Year of Publication: 2010
Location: London
The Prophet’s Ascension: Cross-Cultural Encounters with the Islamic Mi‘raj Tales
Christiane Gruber
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Year of Publication: 2010
Location: Bloomington
The Islamic Manuscript Tradition: Ten Centuries of Book Arts in Indiana University Collections
Christiane Gruber
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Year of Publication: 2009
Location: Bloomington
The Timurid Book of Ascension (Mi‘rajnama): A Study of Text and Image in a Pan-Asian Context
Christiane Gruber
Publisher: Patrimonio Ediciones in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Year of Publication: 2008
Location: Valencia, Spain
