CYNTHIA BECKER

725 Commonwealth Ave, Rm 305B
Boston, Massachusetts 02215
Telephone: (617) 353-1471
Fax: (617) 353-3243
E-mail: cjbecker@bu.edu

curriculum vitae
Associate Professor; African Art. BA, University of New Orleans; MA, PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison

Professor Cynthia Becker is a scholar of African arts specializing in the arts of the Imazighen (Berbers) in northwestern Africa, specifically Morocco, Algeria, and Niger.  Her research has been supported by a Fulbright grant and several grants from the American Institute of Maghreb Studies.  Professor Becker has served as a consultant for numerous museum exhibitions and published articles on the visual and performing arts of the Imazighen as well as the trans-Saharan slave trade.  Her book Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity was published by the University of Texas Press in July of 2006.  She is currently working on a book about the Afro-Islamic aesthetics and ceremonial practices of the Gnawa that considers the history of the trans-Saharan slave trade and its implications on material culture in both western and northern Africa. Other projects include the visual expression of Amazigh consciousness by contemporary painters/activists, the influence of Sufism on contemporary Moroccan art, and the visual culture and history of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans (her hometown).