Sheila Blair recently retired from the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professorship of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College and the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair in Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, positions she shared with her husband and colleague Jonathan Bloom. Together and separately, they have written or edited a score of books and hundreds of articles on all aspects of Islamic art. Her special interests are the uses of writing and the arts of the Mongol period. She is now preparing several articles on the art and architecture of the Mongols, including the chapters for the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Mongols edited by Michael Biran and Hodong Kim and The Mongol World (Routledge Worlds) edited by Timothy May and Michael Hope.