Barbara Abou-el-Haj, 71, recently retired associate professor of art history, died Friday, March 6. She earned her doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1975, and joined the faculty at Binghamton as an assistant professor in 1985. She was promoted to associate professor in 1991, and retired in August 2014.
At Binghamton, she was very active in the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Fernand Braudel Center.
A prolific author, her writings decisively shifted the field of medieval art history away from its long-established comfort zone of ritual, liturgy and the sumptuous expression of spirituality, making her a leader of the field.