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Jesús Escobar

Office: Kresge 3-406
j-escobar@northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Jesús Escobar (Ph.D., 1996, Princeton; Associate Professor) is a specialist in the art, architecture, and urbanism of early modern Spain, Italy, and the Spanish world. His book The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid (Cambridge University Press, 2003; paper, 2009) explores the interchange of architecture and politics in the evolution of Madrid from a secondary city of Castile to the seat of a global empire. The book won the Eleanor Tufts Award from the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies and was published in a Spanish-language edition in 2008 by Editorial Nerea. Professor Escobar is currently at work on a book project tentatively titled "Architecture and Empire in Seventeenth-Century Madrid," which examines buildings and public spaces in early modern Madrid within the context of developments in architecture, urbanism, and imperial governance in the larger Spanish world. Other current research projects focus on the historiography of the Baroque in Spain and seventeenth-century royal palaces in Madrid, Mexico City, and Lima.

Professor Escobar serves as Editor for the scholarly book series, Buildings, Landscapes, and Societies, published by Penn State University Press and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians. Prior to arriving at Northwestern, Professor Escobar taught at Fairfield University and held visiting professorships at MIT and Columbia. His research has been supported by grants from the Fulbright Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.