Dr. Elisabeth Fraser, Professor of Art History, receives grant to conduct research across the United States and Europe

Congratulations to Professor Elisabeth Fraser on the receipt of a Proposal Enhancement Grant to support her research work. 

The grant will allow Professor Fraser to travel to libraries and museums in Europe and the United States to research Ottoman costume albums for her book, Agents of Contact: Ottoman Costume Albums in Transimperial Networks of Exchange. Produced in both Ottoman and European lands, costume books are bound collections of paintings or prints depicting the diverse peoples of Ottoman society, defining ethnicity, religion, profession, and gender through costume.

Agents of Contact will be the first large-scale investigation of Ottoman costume albums from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and their connection to the material culture of diplomacy and trade. Conceived and collected through the movement of people, bound, rebound, sold, gifted, copied, and reworked, Ottoman costume albums are constituted by a flexibility that facilitated their travel. Professor Fraser sees costume albums as agents of cross-cultural contact and exchange, connecting artists and artisans of the book and diverse audiences across time and space.