Biography
Sylvia Wu is a PhD candidate focusing on medieval Islamic art and architecture. Her research interests include Muslim architecture and devotional art of the Indian Ocean world, mosque and shrine architecture in China, and the intersection of urban governance and social engineering. Sylvia's dissertation, "Mosques on the Edge: Tale and Survival of Muslim Monuments in Coastal China," is a close study of Quanzhou's Qingjing Mosque, a site with contested histories, cultural identities, and complex visual reference. Sylvia's essay on the Shirazi mosques on the East African coast appears in the special issue "Islamicate Fictionalities" of the journal postmedieval. She also contributed to Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online. Sylvia received her MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She held positions in the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in Arts of Asia at the Art Institute of Chicago.