Scholar of Islamic Art Gets Tenure

University President Lawrence H. Summers approved the promotion of Islamic art historian David J. Roxburgh to the rank of senior professor yesterday only hours after an ad hoc committee recommended the move.

His appointment marks the continuation of a the department’s 12-year record of granting tenure to its associate professors, according to Chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture Yve-Alain Bois.

The decision makes Roxburgh the youngest senior faculty member in the department and one of the youngest in the University.

Roxburgh began his career as an artist, graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1988. Immediately after receiving his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996, he joined Harvard’s ranks as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2001.

According to Ladan Akbamia, a third year graduate student in the department, his rapid ascent is not surprising.

“Everyone in the department agrees that if anyone deserved it, he did,” she said.

Colleagues said they are impressed by his unique and thorough scholarship, and particularly by his most recent work “Persian Album: 1400-1600: From Dispersal to Collection.”

Bois said the book, which will be published by Yale University Press, examines a scrapbook of Persian paintings and calligraphy collected by medieval courtiers.

“He has found logic on something that looked totally random,” Bois said.

And Roxburgh’s students said they admire the originality of his academic work.

“I really respect his thinking,” Akbamia said. “There is no rehashing. He is always breaking new ground.”

But Akbamia said that what distinguishes Roxburgh from other professors is how his enthusiasm for his own scholarship leads to support for the work of his students.

“He really engages his students and has a huge base of loyal students, even in other fields,” she said.

As a teaching fellow in Roxburgh’s course, Literature and Arts B-46: “Art in the Wake of the Mongol Conquests: Genghis Khan and His Successors,” Akbamia said Roxburgh learned the name of every one of the 90 students in his class and often publicized their athletic games in lecture.

Johnathan C. Man ’03, a student in the class, said Roxburgh’s personality—and Irish accent—made for an exceptionally lively class.

“He is entertaining and willing to make fun of himself,” Man said. “The material was interesting, but what I liked best about the course was him.”

Akbamia said Roxburgh has held reading courses for graduate students even while on leave.

Bois cited his high CUE guide ratings and the dozen courses he has taught as proof of his dedication to teaching.

Having lost several senior faculty members a few years ago, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture has grown steadily, receiving four senior faculty members in the last three years.

Now, with 21 professors, they still have three searches for more faculty members underway.

Bois said that he is confident that the department will continue to attract leading art history scholars as they work to maintain and expand their ranks.

“We have a very good record because we take our junior faculty very seriously,” Bois said. “We work like maniacs to attract them.”

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.