Speaker: Nancy Um, Binghamton University
Respondent: Roxani Margariti, Emory University

Nancy Um is Professor of Art History and Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Inclusion at Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, Binghamton University. Her research explores the Islamic world from the perspective of the coast, with a focus on material, visual, and built culture on the Arabian Peninsula and around the rims of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. She is the author of The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009) and Shipped but not Sold: Material Culture and the Social Protocols of Trade during Yemen’s Age of Coffee (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), in addition to studies about trade, art, diplomacy, and gift exchange around the early modern Indian Ocean rim.