“Grounded by a Set of Relations”: Nancy Um on "Horizontal" Cultures within Art History

In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing

In this episode Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Nancy Um, professor of art history at Binghamton University in New York State, whose research explores the Islamic world from the perspective of the coast, with a focus on material, visual, and built culture on the Arabian Peninsula and around the rims of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Nancy describes her experience of conducting fieldwork in Yemen, particularly as a young female scholar, and reflects on the constraints of focusing on an area marked by geopolitical instability. She recounts her decision to focus on bodies of water instead of territories, and how this approach destabilizes some of the traditional organizing principles of the discipline, but allows her to pursue global art history on a local scale. Finally, she considers digital art history as a site of access, and as part of a dynamic approach to her own work changing over time.