ASF Sephardi Scholars Series Presents – Bayt Farhi and the Sephardic Palaces of Ottoman Damascus

Professor Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis will present new research on the remarkable courtyard houses of the Farhi and other important Sephardic families in late 18th/early 19th century Damascus. Her analysis of architecture and décor offers a lens into the Damascene Jewish community and its interaction with Ottoman culture.

Professor Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, an active archaeologist and architectural historian, is the author of Bayt Farhi and the Sephardic Palaces of Ottoman Damascus in the Late 18th and 19th Centuries (American Schools of Oriental Research, 2018). She currently teaches at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY), where she also serves as the Acting Executive Officer in M.A. in Liberal Studies and directs the M.A. in Liberal Studies concentration in Archaeology of the Classical, Late Antique, and Islamic Worlds.  She is the Deputy Director of Manar al-Athar, an open-access digital humanities resource for the study of the Middle East, co-director of the Upper Egypt Mosque Project, serves on the governing board of the Archaeological Institute of America, and is both Smarthistorys Governing Board Chairperson and Contributing Editor for Art of the Islamic World. Professor Macaulay-Lewis has a DPhil in Classical Archaeology from Oxford University.