Contact Information
101 Temple Buell Hall
611 E Lorado Taft Dr
M/C 620
Champaign, IL 61820
Biography
An historian of Islamic art and architecture, Dr. Ruggles’ research examines the medieval landscape of Islamic Spain and South Asia and the complex interrelationship of Islamic culture with Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism and the precise ways that religion and culture are often conflated in the study of these. She is the author of two award-winning books on gardens: Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (2000), and Islamic Gardens and Landscapes (2008). Additionally she has edited or co-edited numerous works, including Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies (2000), the award-winning Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision (2007), Cultural Heritage and Human Rights (2007), Intangible Heritage Embodied (2009), On Location (2012), and Islamic Art and Visual Culture: An Anthology of Sources (2011). Her most recent book is Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr (2020).
Education
University of Pennsylvania, History of Art, M.A., and PhD.
Harvard University, Visual and Environmental Studies, A.B, cum laude.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, School of Architecture
Professor, Program in Medieval Studies
Professor, Gender and Women's Studies
Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Professor, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
External Links
Highlighted Publications
Ruggles, D. F. (Ed.) (2011). Islamic art and visual culture: An Anthology of Sources. Wiley-Blackwell. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405154020.html
Ruggles, D. F. (2016). Islamic Gardens and Landscapes. Koç University Press.
Recent Publications
Ruggles, D. F. (2021). From Garden to Landscape: Lessons from the Taj and the Alhambra. International Journal of Islamic Architecture, 10(1), 89-98. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijia_00031_1
Ruggles, D. F. (2021). Representation, Signature and Trace in Islamic Art. In P. Patton, & H. Schilb (Eds.), The Lives and Afterlives of Medieval Iconography (pp. 57-86). Pennsylvania State Univ Press.
Ruggles, D. F. (2021). The Aljibe del Rey in Granada. In A. Bigelow (Ed.), Islam Through Objects (pp. 173-188). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350132849.ch-011
Ruggles, D. F. (2020). La Identidad del Obrero en la Córdoba Islámica. In F. Giese, & A. Leon (Eds.), Dialogo artístico durante la edad media – arte islámico – arte mudéjar Casa Arabe.
Ruggles, D. F. (2020). Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190873202.001.0001