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Bihter Esener

Assistant Professor of Islamic Art and Medieval Mediterranean

Ph.D., Koç University, 2022

Bihter Esener (she/her/hers) is an art historian of the visual and material cultures of the medieval Islamic world, with a special interest in Armenian, Byzantine, and Persian-Islamic artistic exchange and cultural encounters in medieval Anatolia, the South Caucasus, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Her current book project contextualizes bronze mirrors within the lives of the inhabitants of medieval Anatolia by considering their various functions in personal adornment and their use in devotional, divinatory, and talismanic practices during the Seljuk period, i.e., between the late eleventh and early fourteenth centuries. Her research has been supported by various grants and institutions, including the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT)’s Hanfmann Fellowship, SOAS-Getty Connecting Art Histories Research Project, Koç University’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies (GABAM), and The Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) at the University of Michigan via a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Before joining Northwestern, Prof. Esener taught in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Michigan, where she offered courses ranging from the Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean World to specialized seminars such as Istanbul Through the Ages, Sports and Art in the Middle Ages, and Medievalism in Video Games. She was also affiliated with the Digital Studies Institute (DSI). As a founding member of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, she served as Director of Digital Technologies from 2020 to 2025, and was Assistant Editor at the International Journal of Islamic Architecture from 2022 to 2025.

At Northwestern, Prof. Esener participated in the Generative AI 101 program, which was organized by Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT) and co-sponsored by the Provost’s Advisory Committee. For the 2025–26 academic year, she was selected as a Searle Fellow, a program supported by the Office of the Provost and the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching. Following a College Fellowship in the Department of Art History, she began serving as Assistant Professor of Islamic Art and Medieval Mediterranean in Fall 2025.

Her faculty spotlight can be read here.

 

Fields of Study:

  • Islamic art and architecture 
  • Artistic interactions in the Medieval Mediterranean, South Caucasus, and Anatolia 
  • Material culture 
  • Built environment and landscape
  • Digital art history
  • Historical game studies

 

Memberships:

  • Historians of Islamic Art Association
  • International Center of Medieval Art
  • Association of Friends of the Centre for Early Medieval Studies
  • Middle East Medievalists
  • Byzantine Studies Association of North America
  • International Council of Museums-United States


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Selected Publications:

Esener, Bihter. “Solomon’s Jinns and the Art of Healing: Talismanic Objects in the Therapeutic Landscapes of Medieval Anatolia.” In Materialities of Disease Across the Medieval World: Images, Objects, and Remains, edited by Jones Lori, 177–202. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2025.

Gruber, Christiane, and Bihter Esener. “Islamic Art in the Third Millennium: From Regimes to Horizons.” In Regime Change: New Horizons in Islamic Art and Visual Culture, edited by Christiane Gruber and Bihter Esener, 6–13. London: Gingko Library, 2024.

Esener, Bihter. “Reflect-Wear Art and Healing in Medieval Anatolia: Two Bronze Mirrors in the Detroit Institute of Arts.” The Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. 97 (December 2023).

Esener, Bihter. “The Environment and Ecology in Islamic Art and Culture, the Ninth Biennial Hamad Bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, Qatar, Doha, November 8–15, 2021.” International Journal of Islamic Architecture 12, no. 1 (January 2023).

Esener, Bihter. “Mirror.” In City in the Desert, Revisited: Oleg Grabar at Qasr Al-Hayr Al- Sharqi, 1964–71, edited by Christiane Gruber and Michelle Al-Ferzly, 132–33. Ann Arbor, MI: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, ISBN: 978-1-7330504-0-1.

Esener, Bihter. “Exhibition Review of ‘Armenia!’ by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York September 22, 2018 – January 13, 2019.” SEQUITUR 5, no. 2 (2019), ISSN 2378-6159.