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Kimia Shahi

Assistant Professor of Art History
Kimia Shahi
Pronouns She / Her / Hers Email kshahi@usc.edu

Biography

Kimia Shahi is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California. She teaches, researches, and writes about the art and visual culture of the modern United States with a focus on trans/oceanic and multidisciplinary perspectives. She is particularly interested in the intersections of image-making and knowledge production in relation to histories of geography, empire, and environment. Her work explores these entanglements across diverse historical media and technologies of visualization—from landscape paintings to drawings, maps, scientific illustrations, navigational guides, and image databases, among other examples. 

Shahi’s first...

Education

  • Ph.D. Art History, Princeton University, 2021
  • M.A. Art History, Princeton University, 2016
  • M.A. Art History, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012
  • A.B. Art History, with a minor in Studio Art, Dartmouth College, 2009
    • Kernan Brothers Environmental Fellow, Harvard University Center for the Environment, Harvard University, 2021 – 2023

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Modern art and visual culture, with a focus on 19th-20th century United States; histories and theories of knowledge; landscape painting; exchanges among, art, science, and technology; cartography; oceanic, transoceanic, and coastal histories; environment and ecology; empire and colonialism

    • (Fall 2023) AHIS 367. Early American Modernism: American Art and Visual Culture, 1876-1939, TTh, 12:30pm – 01:50pm
    • (Spring 2024) VISS 599. Special Topics – Environmental Media, Technological Surrounds, W, 02:00pm – 04:40pm
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