Rate My Professor Beatrice St.Laurent

Beatrice St. Laurent is Professor of Art and Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at Bridgewater State University. She received her BA in Studio Art and MA in Art History from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, an MA in Art History from Harvard University, and a PhD in Islamic Art and Architecture from Harvard University in 1989. Her research interests encompass Islamic art and architecture, with a particular emphasis on the Islamic monuments of Jerusalem such as the Haram al-Sharif and Dome of the Rock, the archaeology of Jerusalem, and historic photography. St. Laurent's scholarship explores early Islamic mosques, Umayyad architecture under Mu'awiya, preservation efforts, and the political dimensions of restorations from the Ottoman period through the twentieth century.

Appointed Professor at Bridgewater State University since 2013, St. Laurent has garnered notable awards and fellowships, including the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research Fellowship for 2017-2018 on “Mu’awiya’s Jerusalem 638-680 CE,” a National Endowment for the Humanities Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in 2009-2010 for studies on the Dome of the Rock, and an American Institute of Maghrib Studies Grant. Her extensive publication record features peer-reviewed articles such as “Spolia – A Conscious Display of History in Seventh-Century Jerusalem” (Jerusalem Quarterly, 2022), “From Arabia to Bilād al-Shām: Muʿāwiya’s Development of an Infrastructure and Monumental Architecture of Early Umayyad Statehood” (Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 2019), “Capitalizing Jerusalem and Beyond: A Preliminary Note on Mu’āwiya’s Urban and Imperial Vision 635-680” (Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 2018), “Reconciling National and International Interests: The Rockefeller Museum and Its Collections” (Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies, 2017), “From Bursa to Jerusalem: From Yeşil Turbe to the Dome of the Rock” (2016), “Archaeology & Preservation of Early Islamic Jerusalem: Revealing the 7th Century Mosque on the Haram al-Sharif” with Isam Awwad (2016), “The Marwani Musalla in Jerusalem: New Findings” with Isam Awwad (2013), and “The Imperial Museum of Antiquities in Jerusalem, 1890-1930” with Himmet Taskömür (2013). She actively participates in academic conferences, chairs sessions for the American Schools of Oriental Research, and advances understanding of Jerusalem's sacred architecture through interdisciplinary approaches combining art history and archaeology.