{"id":5202,"date":"2015-07-24T14:55:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T18:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/?post_type=profile&p=5202"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:23:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:23:55","slug":"cynthia-becker","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/profile\/cynthia-becker\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Becker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
Email<\/th>\nFall 2026 Office Hours<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
cjbecker@bu.edu<\/a><\/td>\nOn Leave<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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Cynthia Becker (BA, University of New Orleans; MA, PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Professor of African art history in the History of Art & Architecture Department at Boston University. Her book Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity<\/em> (University of Texas Press, 2006) won a Choice book award in 2007. She has written numerous articles about such topics as the Sahara as a cultural and artistic zone, Amazigh identity politics, contemporary art in the Maghreb, Black Indians in New Orleans, as well as counter-monuments to the Confederacy in New Orleans (her hometown). Her latest book, Blackness in Morocco: Gnawa Identity through Music and Visual Culture<\/em>, was published by the University of MN Press in November 2020 and won an Honorable Mention Award from the American Institute of Maghreb Studies.<\/p>\n

Her writings on North Africa have been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including those organized by the\u00a0Mus\u00e9e berb\u00e8re du Jardin Marjorelle<\/em> (for Berber Women of Morocco<\/em>),\u00a0the\u00a0Institut du Monde Arabe<\/em> (for Tr\u00e9sors de l\u2019islam en Afrique<\/em>), the Block Museum at Northwestern (for Caravans of Gold<\/em>), the Newark Museum (for Arts of Global Africa<\/em>), and the University of Florida Harn Museum (for Africa Interweave: Textile Diasporas<\/em>). She has publications in such journals as\u00a0African Arts<\/em>,\u00a0RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics<\/em>, Critical Interventions<\/em>,\u00a0the\u00a0Journal of North African Studies<\/em>, de arte<\/em>,\u00a0and\u00a0Contemporary Islam<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Her research has been supported by grants from Fulbright, the Council of American Overseas Centers, Fulbright-Hays, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the American Institute of Maghreb Studies, and Boston University\u2019s Initiative on Cities.<\/p>\n

The undergraduate courses that she teaches at Boston University include \u201cArts of Africa and its Diaspora,\u201d \u201cAfrican Art in the City,\u201d and \u201cFrom Morocco to Timbuktu: Art and Architecture at the Saharan Crossroads.\u201d She also teaches graduate seminars on such topics as contemporary art and photography in Africa, post-colonial theory, and Art and Trade Across the Medieval Sahara. She was awarded an Innovative Teaching Award by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association in 2020.<\/p>\n

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Curriculum Vitae<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Select Publications<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\u201cTattooing as Subversive Archive: Safaa Mazirh\u2019s Reclamation of Tattoos in Postcolonial Morocco,\u201d<\/span><\/strong> 2024. In Decolonizing Islamic Art in Africa<\/i>, edited by Ashley Miller. University of Chicago Press, 133-156.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nBlackness in Morocco: Gnawa Identity through Music and Visual Culture.<\/strong>
\nMinneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\n\u201cConfederate Soldiers, Voodoo Queens, and Black Indians:
\nMonuments and Counter-Monuments in New Orleans.<\/em>\u201d<\/strong>
\nde arte<\/em> 54, no.2 (2019): 41-64.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\u201cThe Sahara as a Cultural Zone.\u201din Caravans of Gold: Fragments in Time<\/em>,
\n<\/strong>edited by Kathleen Bickford Berzock, 99-106.
\nPrinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\u201cNew Orleans Mardi Gras Indians: Mediating Racial Politics from the Backstreets to Main Street.\u201d
\n<\/strong>African Arts<\/em> 46, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 36-49.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\u201cMatriarchal Nomads and Freedom Fighters:
\nTransnational Amazigh Consciousness and Moroccan, Algerian, and Nigerien Artists.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>
\nCritical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture<\/em> 5 (2009): 70-101.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nAmazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity.<\/strong>
\nAustin: University of Texas Press, 2006.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":2318,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/5202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/5202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18149,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/5202\/revisions\/18149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}