Riad Kherdeen, PhD
Art History
Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate
Pronouns: he/him
About
Riad Kherdeen is a Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Art History Department at the University of Illinois Chicago. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in History of Art with a designated emphasis in Critical Theory. He studies global modern art and architecture, with a focus on the region of South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA). His current book project, titled “Spectral Modernisms: Decolonial Aesthetics and Haunting in the Aftershock of Morocco’s Agadir Earthquake (1960),” tracks the entanglements of modernist art and architecture in Morocco with the 1960 Agadir earthquake. His research interests include comparative and planetary modernisms, decoloniality, critical theory, and ecocriticism; his publications include "Surrealism in the Arab World" in the Routledge Companion to Surrealism. Riad’s research and writing have been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley.