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Olivia Wolf, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Caroline “Olivia” Wolf’s research and teaching emphasize diasporic and transregional intersections in visual culture, engaging rigorously with Latin American and Middle Eastern art and architecture. She is particularly interested in the artistic production, architecture, and patronage of modern and contemporary diasporic artists, cultural agents, and communities across Latin America, as well as the region’s ties to the broader Global South.

Wolf’s current book manuscript, Migrant Constructions: Transnational Art and Architecture of the Syrian-Lebanese Diaspora in Modern Argentina (University of Pittsburgh Press, forthcoming), examines the artistic and architectural production of Syrian and Lebanese immigrant communities in Argentina. Supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project highlights the public memorials and spaces of collectivity, including social clubs and places of worship, sponsored by the religiously diverse Syrian and Lebanese immigrant community in twentieth-century Argentina. Wolf demonstrates how diasporic artists and patrons strategically shaped new transnational identities in a nation where their presence was initially contested. The project reveals layered artistic and architectural dialogues between Latin America and the Levant and underscores the vital role of diaspora communities in shaping visual culture throughout the Americas.

Wolf recently published the edited volume Islamic and Islamicate Architectures in the Americas: Transregional Dialogues and Manifestations (Intellect Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 2025), the first edited collection to examine Islamic architecture in the Americas from a hemispheric perspective. The volume explores the adaptation and transformation of Middle Eastern and Islamic architectural forms across the Americas. As sole editor, Wolf also authored the introduction and a chapter on diasporic cosmopolitanism in Islamicate residential architecture in Brazil. Related publications investigate modern and contemporary mosques, transnational patronage, and reinterpretations of the mudéjar and its afterlives in Latin America.

Wolf has also published peer-reviewed book chapters and articles in journals such as Hemispheres: Visual Cultures of the Americas and Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture. A complementary body of work examines Syrian- and Lebanese-Argentine artists Víctor Chab and Bibi Zogbé through frameworks of diasporic identity, artistic networks, and transregional visual culture, extending these questions into museum and exhibition contexts. Another strand of her research engages with the African diaspora in Latin America; she has presented work on this topic internationally at the Terra Foundation Landscapes of the Americas conference and the CIHA World Congress.

Wolf’s research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship, the Society of Architectural Historians, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. She also served as the Camfield Fellow for Latin American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2013-2014 and was a Visiting Scholar at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in 2019. Her work has been published in Argentina, Europe, Turkey, and the United States. She was recently accepted as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Newberry Library.

Prior to joining Loyola University Chicago, Wolf held a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She also served as a Lecturer in New York University’s Buenos Aires Global Program and taught art history at Rice University and Indiana University Bloomington.

@olivia_wolf_phd (Instagram)
@Olivia_Wolf_PhD (Twitter)

Education

PhD, Art History, Rice University
MA, Art History, Indiana University Bloomington
BFA, Design, University of Notre Dame (Cum Laude)

Research Interests

Latin American Art and Architecture

Diaspora and Identity in Visual Culture

Middle Eastern Art & Architecture

Art and Patronage networks between Latin America and the Middle East

Art and Patronage networks between Latin America and Africa

Islam in Latin American Visual Culture

Mudéjar forms and interpretations in Ibero-America

The Global South

Decolonial Theory

Specialty Area

Art history; Latin American and Middle Eastern art and architecture

Courses Taught

Global Art History: Modern Art (FNAR 202),

Global Art History: 600-1800 CE (FNAR 201),

Latin American Art II: Modern & Contemporary (FNAR 353),

Latin American Art I: Ancient to Colonial (FNAR 351),

Methods in Art History (FNAR 391),

Senior Thesis (FNAR 391)

Publications/Research Listings

Books:

  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, Migrant Constructions: Transnational Art and Architecture of the Syrian-Lebanese Diaspora in Modern Argentina, 1910-1955 (forthcoming, University of Pittsburgh Press).
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf (editor; author of Introduction and Chapter 7), Islamic and Islamicate Architecture in the Americas: Transregional Dialogues and Manifestations, Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East series (Bristol: Intellect Press, distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2025).

Book Chapters:

  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Modern and Contemporary Mosques in Latin America: Tracing Local and Transnational Dimensions through Temporal and Geographic Frames.” In The Religious Architecture of Islam, vol. 2: Africa, Europe, and the Americas, edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan and Kathryn Moore (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2022), 316–37.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Argentina’s King Fahd Islamic Cultural Center: Transnational Patronage and Aesthetics in Latin America’s Largest Mosque Complex.” In The Religious Architecture of Islam, vol. 2: Africa, Europe, and the Americas, edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan and Kathryn Moore (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2022), 338–47.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Islamic Architecture in the Americas: Advancing a Transregional and Hemispheric Approach.” In Islamic Architecture Today and Tomorrow: (Re)Defining the Field, edited by Mohammad Gharipour and Daniel Coslett (Bristol: Intellect Press, 2022), 93–112.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Memorializing Migration: Immigrant Patronage, Public Memory, and the Syrian Centennial Monument to Argentina (1910).” In Migrants and Monuments: Public Memory in the Context of Transnational Migration and Displacement, edited by Sabine Marschall. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, 31–60.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “The Pen Has Extolled Her Virtues: Gender and Power within the Visual Legacy of Shajar al-Durr in Cairo.” In Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World, edited by Mohammad Gharipour and İrvin Cemil Schick. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, 199–216.

Journal Issues and Articles:

  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Between Argentine, Jewish and Syrian Identities: Víctor Chab’s Surrealist Visions”, Latin American Jewish Studies, vol. 3.2 (Spring 2025): 127–144.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Migrant Monuments, Monumental Migrants: São Paulo’s Sculptural Homage to Syrian-Lebanese Friendship and the Crafting of Transnational Identity in Centennial Brazil,” Anuario del Instituto de Investigaciones sobre Patrimonio Cultural (Buenos Aires: TAREA-IIPC, 2017), 121-152.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Re-thinking Mudéjar and its Revivals in Latin American Architecture: Colonial to Modern Dialogues and Translations,” Introduction, co-authored with Dr. Fernando Martínez Nespral, for Special Dialogues section co-edited with Dr. Fernando Martínez Nespral, Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (LALVC), (2022) 4 (3): 75–82.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Marking Time, Marking Movement: Mexico City's Ottoman Clock Tower as a Transnational Expression of Immigrant Identity,” Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas, Volume IX, Walk This Way: Migrations & Geographies of Knowledge (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016), 24-43.

Exhibition Catalog Essays

  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Temas y trayectorias internacionales de Bibi Zogbé en la prensa Argentina”, Colores del alma. El legado de Bibí Zogbé. (Buenos Aires: Fundación Bibi Zogbé, 2024), 49-51.
  • Caroline ‘Olivia’ Wolf, “Carlos Cruz-Diez: Autonomía del color” in Sicardi|Ayers|Bacino: 25+, (Houston:
  • Sicardi,Ayers, Bacino, 2022), 61-65.

Academic Video Lectures

For further publications, please see Dr. Wolf’s website: https://luc.academia.edu/CarolineOliviaMWolf

Awards

National Endowment for the Humanities Individual Fellowship

American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship

Newberry Library Scholar-in-Residence

Calouste Gulbenkian Museum Visiting Scholar

Fulbright Hayes DDRA Fellowship

Society of Architectural Historians SAHARA grant