Rihab Bagnole specializes in late eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century European Art, Islamic Art, and Middle Eastern visual and performance arts. Particularly dedicated to the study and promotion of Middle Eastern dance, she has taught dance and performed extensively.

Rihab taught at Denison University, Rio Grande University, and Ohio University at Chillicothe and Ironton.

She earned a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Ohio University with emphasis on: visual art, photography, early American and Egyptian cinema, music, dance, gender theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory. She also received a master degree in Fine Art Photography from the same institution.

Rihab recent membership includes College Art Association, Popular Culture Association, and Association for Middle East Women’s Studies.

Selected Recent Papers and Publications:

“Gérôme’s Almeh Dancer: An Autochthonous Interpretation” paper at the College Art Association Annual Conference, Dallas, TX. February 2008

“The Role of the Musicals of Farid al-Atrash in Popularizing Belly Dancing”, Popular Culture Association National Conference, Atalnta, Georgia. 2006

Western Media, Eastern Thoughts: Challenging Middle Eastern Taboos on YouTube. (Submitted for publication).

Translation of Isis by Nawal El Saadawi from Arabic to English with an introduction (forthcoming).

"Music in the Middle East and North Africa"

“Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle East and North Africa”

“Radio and Television in the Middle East and North Africa” in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture. Greenwood Press. 2007

Courses Taught:

Surveys of Western and Non-Western Art, History of Photography and photography classes, Introduction to the Arts, Seeing and Knowing the Visual Arts, Roman Art, Near Eastern Art, Feminist Art, Representation of Gender, Islamic Art and Architecture, and Orientalism and Primitivism in Art.