Email: jgersch (at symbol) ku.edu

Jessica Gerschultz is an Assistant Professor of African and African-American Studies. She received her PhD in Art History from Emory University in 2012. Professor Gerschultz’s research and teaching interests span modern and contemporary art in Africa and the Middle East, the linkages between textiles, gender, and materiality, and the sociopolitical dynamics of artists’ networks. She has conducted comparative fieldwork in Tunisia, Senegal, Switzerland, Kenya, and Oman. Her current research examines the political significance of women’s weaving and modern art to Bourguibism in postcolonial Tunisia. She has taught courses on modern and contemporary African art, Islamic art and architecture in Africa, and the arts of eastern and southern Africa.

Professor Gerschultz has contributed to African Art and Agency in the Workshop, Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections, and other volumes in progress. She has held fellowships and awards from the American Association of University Women, Fulbright, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, the Qatar Museums Authority, the Critical Language Scholarship Program, and the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Internship Program. She is a member of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies and the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey.