Chanchal Dadlani

Professor of Art History; Chair of Art History; On leave Spring 2026

United States

United States

With Pomona Since: 2022
  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Chanchal Dadlani is a specialist of Islamic and South Asian art and architecture. Her first book, From Stone to Paper: Architecture as History in the Late Mughal Empire (Yale University Press, 2018), received the Mellon Author Award from the Society of Architectural Historians and was shortlisted for the Morey Prize (College Art Association) and the Kenshur Prize for an Outstanding Monograph in Eighteenth-Century Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Architectural Reference, a special issue of Journal18 (2021). In addition, she has published on artistic exchanges between France and the Mughal empire, the urban history of Delhi, and the contemporary South Asian art market. Her essays have appeared in Art History, Ars Orientalis and Artforum. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Getty Foundation, the Mellon Foundation and Fulbright-Hays.

    Areas of Expertise

    • Mughal Art and Architecture
    • Early Modern Islamic Art and Architecture
    • Artistic Exchanges between France and Mughal India
    • Architectural Representation
    • Art and Epistemology
  • Work

    Work

    Shifting the Paradigm: New Studies in Islamic Art in Honor of Gülru Necipoğlu (Brill, 2026), co-edited with Ladan Akbarnia, Emine Fetvaci, and Jennifer Pruitt.

    The Architectural Reference, special issue of Journal18: A Journal of Eighteenth-Century Arts and Culture (Spring 2021), co-edited with Ünver Rüstem.

    From Stone to Paper: Architecture as History in the Late Mughal Empire (Yale University Press, 2018).

    • Winner, SAH/Mellon Author Award
    • Finalist, Charles Rufus Morey Book Award (Distinguished Book in the History of Art, College Art Association)
    • Finalist, Kenshur Prize (Outstanding Monograph in Eighteenth-Century Studies, Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University)

    The Mughals, the Marathas, and the Refracted Eighteenth-Century,” co-authored with Holly Shaffer, Journal 18: A Journal of Eighteenth-Century Arts and Culture (Fall 2021).

    “The City Built, the City Rendered: Locating Urban Subjectivity in Eighteenth-Century Delhi,” in Affect, Emotion, and Subjectivity in Early Modern Muslim Empires, ed. Kishwar Rizvi (Brill, 2017).

    “Innovation, Appropriation, and Representation: Mughal Architectural Ornament in the Eighteenth Century,” in Histories of Ornament: Between Global and Local, eds. Gülru Necipoğlu and Alina Payne (Princeton, 2016).

    Transporting India: The Gentil Album and Mughal Manuscript Culture,” Art History 38 (2015).

    “The ‘Palais Indiens’ of 1774: Representing Mughal Architecture in Eighteenth-Century India,” Ars Orientalis 39 (2011).

    “Beyond the Taj Mahal: Late Mughal Visual Culture, 1658-1858,” co-authored with Yuthika Sharma, in The Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture (Blackwell Companions to Art History Series), eds. F. Barry Flood and Gülru Necipoğlu (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017).

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D., History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, 2009

    A.M., History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, 2004

    B.A., Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, 1999

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Islamic Art and Architecture
    • South Asian Art and Architecture
    • Ottoman Art and Architecture
    • Art & Colonialism in South Asia
    • The Architect, from Medieval to Modern
    • Senior Seminar in Art History
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2021-22)

    Mellon Author Award, Society of Architectural Historians (2017)

    Getty Research Institute Fellowship (2013-14)

    Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Columbia University (2009-11)

    Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship (2006-7)

    Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship (2004-5)

    Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies (2002-3)