BARBARA FRANK, Associate Professor, Ph.D. Indiana University
bfrank@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Room 4219 - 631.632-7264

Barbara E. Frank is Associate Professor of Art History with joint appointment in Africana Studies. She teaches undergraduate courses on the arts of ancient Mesoamerica, Africa, and the African Diaspora and Graduate Seminars on issues in Global, Colonial and Diasporic art. She has recently developed a new course on contemporary African art.  She has a Ph.D. in African Art History from Indiana University. Her primary research has been in Mali, West Africa, where she has worked with ceramic and textile artists, leatherworkers and blacksmiths on artistry, technology and social identity. She has held several major fellowships including an NEH Fellowship for College Teachers, a Social Science Research Council Grant, two Fulbright-Hays Research Abroad Fellowships, and a Smithsonian Institution Senior Research Fellowship. Her major publications include Mande Potters and Leatherworkers. Art and Heritage in West Africa (Smithsonian, 1998, 2001) selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book, and an edited volume Status and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande (Indiana, 1995). She recently co-edited a special issue of the journal African Arts (2007) on African ceramic arts including her own article on the women potters of the Folona region of Mali.