DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY

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 dissertation, which she is currently transforming into a book, contextualized 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.

Before joining Northwestern, Prof. Esener was a lecturer in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Michigan, where she taught courses on the Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean, Istanbul Through the Ages, Sports and Art, and Medievalism in Video Games. She was also affiliated faculty at the Digital Studies Institute (DSI). Moreover, she is one of the founding members of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, for which she serves as Digital Technologies Manager, as well as an assistant editor at the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA).

Prof. Esener’s 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.

Prof. Esener’s faculty spotlight can be read here.

Program Area: Medieval

Regional Specialization: Middle East and North Africa; Mediterranean and Islamic Art

Interests: Islamic Art and Architecture; Artistic interactions in the Medieval Mediterranean, South Caucasus, and Anatolia; Medieval Islamic Metalwork; Visual and Material Culture; Built Environment and Landscape; Digital Art History; Historical Digital Games

News from the Classroom:

• Historical Digital Games as Teaching Tools

Websites:

• Academic Page: besener.com
• Medievalism in Video Games: Art, Culture, and Theory
• Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online

Selected Publications

Esener, Bihter. “Following the Stars and Solomon’s Jinns: Therapeutic Objects of Medieval Anatolia.” In Images, Objects, Remains: Materialities of Disease in the Global Medieval World, edited by Lori Jones. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press (forthcoming in 2025).

Gruber, Christiane and Bihter Esener. “Introduction.” In Regime Change: New Horizons in Islamic Art and Visual Culture, edited by Christiane Gruber and Bihter Esener. London: Gingko Publishers (March 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. “Précis of 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. “40. 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.