# Suzanne Preston Blier Allen Whitehill Clowes Chair of Fine Arts Ph.D. Columbia University On leave 2025 - 2026 ![sblier.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum3586/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/medievalstudies/files/sblier.jpg?itok=DDTQhIHP) location\_on 485 Broadway, room 311 email laptop\_windows [History of Art and Architecture](http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k60323) Suzanne Preston Blier teaches in the departments of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies, and is an affiliate member of the Committee on Medieval Studies. Her research addresses the history of African art and architecture, as well as the ways in which Western artists and thinkers have interpreted and appropriated African objects and traditions. Her first book, *The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expression* (University of Chicago Press, 1995) was awarded the African Studies Association's Arnold Rubin Prize; her other publications include *African Royal Art: The Majesty of Form* (Prentiss-Hall, 1998) and *Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power and Identity c. 1300* (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Professor Blier is co-chair of the electronic geo-spatial database *Africamap*, as well as a member of the faculty steering committee for its parent site at Harvard, *Worldmap*. - ## People [Faculty](/people/faculty) [Other Medieval Studies Faculty](/people/people/other-medieval-studies-faculty)