Photo of Anna McSweeneyAnna McSweeney

Research

I work on the art, material culture and architecture of the Islamic world, with a focus on Spain, north Africa and the western Mediterranean. The theme of image transfer is central to a strand of my research that examines how Spain's Islamic culture has been constructed and re-imagined through its visual imagery and monuments. I am interested in the historic movement, trade and exchange of objects in the medieval Mediterranean, as well as in the collection and display of objects in museums from the nineteenth-century, in historiography and in orientalism.