Scholar Of African Art Tenured

Columbia University professor Suzanne Blier has accepted a tenure offer to become the Fine Arts Department's first-ever full-time African art specialist, officials said this week.

Blier said yesterday that the courses she will teach when she arrives at Harvard next fall are not yet decided, but that she will work with professors in a number of other departments and faculties who study issues related to Africa, including Afro-American Studies chair Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Blier called Gates' involvement "critical" in her decision to come to Harvard.

"I'm just elated that Harvard is putting so much support into the study of Africa," she said.

Professor of Afro-American Studies K. Anthony Appiah, who served on the search committee that brought Blier to Harvard, said members of his department encouraged her to accept the tenure offer.

"We are delighted," Appiah said. "Several of us have talked to her...[and] told her how welcome she would be."

Appiah, the head tutor of Afro-Am, said Blier's work as an Africanist will boost his department's capacity for comparative studies.

A larger community of Africanists, Appiah said, gives Afro-Am scholars the chance to explore "the shape that our work takes on this side of the Atlantic and the other side of the Atlantic."

In addition to courses on Africa, Blier is currently teaching courses on theory and issues of colonialism. Her research centers on Western African art and traditions.

Blier is author of a number of books, most recently The Danger of Art: Anomie, Alchemy and African Vodun, a study of the voodoo traditions of Haiti, NewOrleans, and Salem, Mass. and their African roots.

She has also written The Anatomy ofArchitecture: Ontology and Metaphor in BatammalibaArchitectural Expression (1987), which wonseveral awards, Africa's Cross River: Art ofthe Nigerian-Cameroon Border (1980), The AfricanArt of Theater (1980) and Beauty and theBeast: A Study in Contrasts (1976).

Blier received her B.A. in 1973 from theUniversity of Vermont. In 1981, she was awarded aPh.D. from Columbia, and began teaching at anumber of schools near New York, including RutgersUniversity and Vassar College.

From 1981 to 1983, Blier taught at NorthwesternUniversity. She joined the Columbia faculty in1983, and received tenure there in 1988.

Fellowships

Blier has also received a number offellowships, including a Guggenheim and twoFulbrights.

In addition, she has served as a fellow at theInstitute for Advanced Studies at PrincetonUniversity and at the Getty Institute for Art

She has also written The Anatomy ofArchitecture: Ontology and Metaphor in BatammalibaArchitectural Expression (1987), which wonseveral awards, Africa's Cross River: Art ofthe Nigerian-Cameroon Border (1980), The AfricanArt of Theater (1980) and Beauty and theBeast: A Study in Contrasts (1976).

Blier received her B.A. in 1973 from theUniversity of Vermont. In 1981, she was awarded aPh.D. from Columbia, and began teaching at anumber of schools near New York, including RutgersUniversity and Vassar College.

From 1981 to 1983, Blier taught at NorthwesternUniversity. She joined the Columbia faculty in1983, and received tenure there in 1988.

Fellowships

Blier has also received a number offellowships, including a Guggenheim and twoFulbrights.

In addition, she has served as a fellow at theInstitute for Advanced Studies at PrincetonUniversity and at the Getty Institute for Art