Woodman Taylor studies visual cultures of the Islamic world and South Asia. From initially investigating the performative uses of Indian paintings, his recent projects include the visuality of Bollywood cinema as well as the construction of identities within communities of the South Asian diaspora. His B.A. from Wesleyan University was in Asian History and Ethnomusicology. He subsequently received his doctorate in Art History from the University of Chicago where he also was awarded the Wayne Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching. At the University of Illinois Chicago, he created an innovative curriculum for Asian art, again winning an award for teaching excellence. As a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s new School of Arts and Aesthetics in New Delhi, Taylor taught a graduate seminar on ‘Critical Approaches to Visual Culture.’ Taylor has published on a wide variety of topics, from the ritual status of Buddha images to the poetics of Bollywood cinema. Publications include: ‘Agency and Affectivity of Paintings: the Lives of Chitrajis in Hindu Ritual Contexts’ published in Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief (2005) ‘Penetrating Gazes: The Poetics of Sight and Visual Display in Popular Indian Cinema’ published in Beyond Appearances: Visual Practices and Ideologies in Modern India (New Delhi: Sage, 2003) ‘Picture Practice: Painting Programs, Manuscript Production, and Liturgical Performances at the Kotah Royal Palace’, an essay in the exhibition catalog Kotah: Its Gods, Kings and Tigers (New York: Asia Society, 1997) ‘Portability and Practice: Valences of Early Buddhist Visual Language’, Orientations, v. 28, no.7 (1997) As a curator of both Indian and Islamic art Taylor also has extensive experience organizing exhibitions and training museum professionals. Trained at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, he was recruited to be curator of the distinguished Indian and Islamic Art collection formed by Ananda Coomaraswamy at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. One of his new initiatives at the M.F.A. was exhibiting contemporary artists from South Asia and the Islamic world who work globally. Exhibitions organized at the MFA and Harvard include: Ideals of Love and Desire: Keshava Das’s Rasikapriya Kufic Korans: Calligraphy in the World of Islam Resounding Ragas: Paintings and Musical Memory in India Glittering Gold: Illumination in Islamic Art Marbling and Music: Performing Sufism at a Turkish Tekke Boston’s South Asian Legacy: Ananda Coomaraswamy and Rabindranath Tagore Ebru: The Art of Marbling in Turkey, India and Iran ‘Devon Chalo: Constructing South Asian Identities Along Chicago’s Devon Avenue’, a photograph exhibition organized for the University of Chicago, incorporated Taylor’s recent research on contemporary popular culture in the South Asian diaspora.

Art History, Asian History and Ethnomusicology