Mitra Kazemi

Mitra Kazemi studies the art, material, and visual cultures of early modern Spain and Italy. She is writing a dissertation on cartas ejecutorias, illuminated nobility patents which were commissioned by hidalgos, or lower nobility, in the Spanish world to claim privileges associated with their status and demonstrate their claims to purity of blood and Old Christian lineage. She has also worked on topics ranging from early modern armor, the influence and presence of Egyptian antiquity and Islamic cultures in early modern Italy, and the historiography and exhibition of ‘Persian art’ in Europe and America.

Mitra received her BA in Art History from the University of British Columbia and her MA in Art History from McGill University, where her thesis examined the graffiti produced by prisoners of the Spanish Inquisition at the Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri in Palermo, Sicily throughout the seventeenth century. She has a particular interest in teaching and pedagogy, and was a Lead Teaching Fellow (2025-26) and Senior Lead Teaching Fellow (2026-27) through the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning.