Zoe Sara Strother (Columbia University, New York, New York)

Submitted: Tues, February 23, 2010


Zoe Sara Strother
Riggio Professor of African Art
Department of Art History and Archaeology
Columbia University
914 Schermerhorn Hall, MC 5517
New York, New York  10027  USA

phone:   212 854 8529
fax:	 212 854 7329
e-mail:  zss1@columbia.edu


Professor Strother is a specialist in Central and West African art 
history, with a special focus on the twentieth century (both colonial and 
postcolonial). She has conducted research in the Democratic Republic of 
the Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali, and Senegal. Her broad intellectual 
project is to understand how concepts such as "mask," "power object," or 
"divine kingship" have been deployed to theorize power and knowledge in 
African societies.  She is currently also working on a study of 
"iconoclasm" in African art.


Selected publications:

2008.  Pende. Milan: 5 Continents Editions.

2004.  "Architecture Against the State: The Virtues of Impermanence in the 
Kibulu of Eastern Pende Chiefs in Central Africa."  Journal of the Society 
of Architectural Historians 63: 3(September 2004), pp. 272-95.

2001.  "African Works."  Guest editor for special issue of RES: Journal of 
Anthropology and Aesthetics devoted to methodology. (#39: Spring 2001). 
-and- "Editorial"  African Works: Anxious Encounters in the Visual Arts,. 
pp. 5-23

1999.  "Display of the Body Hottentot." In: Africans on Stage, edited by 
Bernth Lindfors. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. 1-61.

1998.  Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central 
Pende. University of Chicago Press. [Paper 1999.] 2000 Arnold Rubin 
Outstanding Publication Award by the Arts Council of the African Studies 
Association