On January 10, Dr. Mercedes Volait discussed her latest book, Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus, 1850-1890: Intercultural Engagements with Architecture and Craft in the Age of Travel and Reform (Brill 2021). In it, Dr. Volait traces the “social lives” and “collective biographies” of Islamic-style objects that included mashrabiyya windows, Ottoman helmets and swords, Mamluk mosque pulpits and more.
Volait is Research Professor at the Centre national de le recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France. She is based at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris (INHA), where in 2008 she founded InVisu, a research lab that studies the history of modern and contemporary art and architecture via visual and material culture, while drawing on methods from digital humanities.