Lyla Halsted is an Assistant Research Professor in the department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke University. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and specializes in medieval Islamic art and architecture. Dr. Halsted’s research explores material culture as a nexus between practices of healing and protection rooted in magical and medical traditions, and their transformations from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. These themes are examined in her 2022 dissertation, “Seeking Refuge from the Envious: The Material Culture of the Evil Eye from Late Antiquity to Islam.” Her work examines points of intersection and divergence between medieval Islamic textual and material traditions, and engages with the materiality of Arabic texts, particularly their relationship to the body.
Lyla Halsted
