Individual Listing

ARTS
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Nair, Stella E

Assistant Professor

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

History of Art


Biography

Trained as an architect and architectural historian, Stella Nair is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art. Her scholarly interests include material culture studies, post colonial theory, and construction technology, with a special focus on Indigenous architecture and urban form in the Andes (before and after the European invasion). Nair’s current project explores the architectural and spatial transformations in Chinchero, Peru, an Inca royal estate and later an Indigenous colonial town. Examining the site within the context of regional landscape transformations, Nair is able to compare Imperial Inca and Spanish colonial conquest strategies--in particular, their respective uses of architecture to control and redefine the rural landscape. Among the courses Nair has taught are “Art and Architecture of the Americas until 1450 CE,” “Medieval Pilgrimage: Creating Sacred Landscapes” [with Cecily Hilsdale], “Architecture, Space, and Landscape in Colonial Encounters,” and “From Law of the Indies to Brasilia: Latin American Architecture and Urbanism (Mexico, Peru and Brazil)” [with Fernando Lara].

Former Institution

University of Michigan

Degrees

Ph. D. History of Architecture 2003

UC Berkeley

M. Arch. Architectural Design 1997

UC Berkeley

BA History 1989

Cornell University

Awards

Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship, Getty Foundation, Los Angeles, California, 2008-2009.
Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Studies Fellowship, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 2008-2009.
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, 2006
Postdoctoral Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows, Univ. of Michigan, 2003-06
Collaborative Research Grant: Institute of Humanities, Univ. of Michigan, 2005
Presenter's Award, Vernacular Architectural Forum, National Conference, Tucson, AZ, 2005
Research Award: Institute for Research on Women & Gender, Univ. of Michigan, 2004
Paul W. McQuillen Memorial Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, 2002
Samuel H. Kress Curatorial Fellow, Dept. of Prints & Drawings, National Gallery of Art, 2003
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, 1999-2001
Fulbright Scholarship, Institute of International Education, 1999


Research Area

Latin American Art & Architecture/ Andean History & Archaeology.

Publications

“Inca Architecture and the Conquest of the Countryside” in Architecture - Design Theory - Inca Structures, edited by Johanna Dehlinger and Hans Dehlinger, Kassel University Press, Kassal Germany, 114-215 (2009).

Review of Jessica Joyce Christie and Patricia Joan Sarro’s (eds) “Palaces and Power in the Americas: from Peru to the Norwest Coast” JSAH - Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 67 (3):457-458 (2008).

"Witnessing the In- Visibility of Inca Architecture in a Colonial Peru," Buildings and Landscape, 14, Fall October, 50-65 (2007).

"The Brazilianization of Brasilia" in the Journal of the International Institute, Winter 10, (2007)(with Fernando Lara).

"Localizing Sacredness, Difference, and Yachacuscamcani in a Colonial Andean Painting,” in Art Bulletin, Vol. 89 (2), 209-238 (2007).

“¿Neo Inca or Colonial? La Muerte de la Arquitectura Inca y Otros Paradigmas” in Identidad y Transformación en el Tawantinsuyu y en los Andes Coloniales: Perspectivas Arqueologicas y Etnohistoricas (segunda parte), ed. Peter Kaulicke, PUCP Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú, 7:113-131 (2003).

“The Gateways of Tiwanaku: Symbols or Passages?” in Andean Archaeology II: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization, eds. Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell, Plenum Press, New York, 189-223 (2002)(with Jean-Pierre Protzen).

“Pumapunku: Plataformas y Portales” in Huari y Tiwanaku: Modelos vs. Evidencias (Segunda parte), eds. by Peter Kaulicke and William H. Isbell, PUCP Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú, 5: 309-336 (2001)(with Jean-Pierre Protzen).

“On Reconstructing Tiwanaku Architecture” in JSAH-Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 59 (3): 358-371 (2000) (with Jean-Pierre Protzen).

Review of Brian S. Bauer, “The Sacred Landscape of the Incas: The Cusco Ceque System,” in TSDR- Traditional Dwellings and Settlement Review, 61-62 (Fall 1999).

Review of Lisbet Bengtsson, “Prehistoric Stonework in the Peruvian Andes: A Case Study at Ollantaytambo,” in Latin American Antiquity, 10 (3):324-325 (1999).

“Who Taught the Inca Stonemasons Their Skills? A Comparison of Tiahuanaco and Inca Cut-Stone Masonry” in JSAH- Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 56 (2): 146-167 (1997) (with Jean-Pierre Protzen).