Richard Turnbull is Assistant Professor in the History of Art department and also Assistant Chair of the department. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, where he majored in Islamic art and architecture and minored in modern art. He also earned a B.A. in history from Cornell University. He has received fellowships from the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) program, the Institute of Turkish Studies, the American Research Institute in Turkey and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His most recent published articles are on Islamic mosques and fortifications and the photographer Luke Smalley. An article on the wall paintings of the Muradiye tomb complex in Bursa, Turkey will be published in 2006 in a festschrift for Dr. Priscilla Soucek of the Institute for Fine Arts.

Before entering graduate school, Dr. Turnbull wrote pop music criticism for The Village Voice, Praxis and The Cornell Daily Sun (among others) and worked as a graphic designer. He also lectures and teaches regularly at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has lectured as well on the Queen Mary 2 and other cruise ships. He teaches at Columbia University in the summer. Dr. Turnbull is also a practicing photographer and printmaker and whenever possible brings his fine art and travel experience to bear in the classroom. He has lived in Turkey and traveled extensively in the Islamic world and participated in the joint NYU-Harvard excavation at Aphrodisias in southwestern Turkey.

Before coming to FIT Dr. Turnbull taught at City College, the College of Staten Island and the College of New Rochelle. During that time he also published an article on the vicissitudes of adjunct life and teaching in the anthology, Ghosts in the Classroom.

Undergraduate Courses: