Biography
I came to St Andrews in 2021, after a research fellowship at Corpus Christi College Oxford. I studied History, Persian Studies, and Islamic Art History in China, Iran, and the UK, and completed my PhD at Heidelberg University, Germany.
Teaching
At St Andrews, I teach courses on Iranian and Islamic art history (from late antiquity to the 19th century), art and culture in Mongol Eurasia, the Timurids, and, more broadly, approaches to book history, art and technology, and comparative medieval studies.
Research areas
My research interests focus on early and medieval Islamic art and culture. So far I have published mostly on materials from the Persian-speaking world during the Mongol and Timurid/Turkmen centuries. They include its reception of foreign, especially Chinese, objects.
Another strong, but less well-developed, interest is the cultural history of the caliphal period (c. 650-1250).
Selected publications
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Shaykhi’s moth: small creatures in fifteenth-century Persian painting
Yu, Y., 25 Jul 2023, The environment and ecology in Islamic art and culture. Dalal, R., Roberts, S. & Sokoly, J. (eds.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, (Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa symposium on Islamic art).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Gold-sprinkled: Chinese paper and Persian book arts during the fifteenth century
Yu, Y., 1 Nov 2021, The allure of matter: materiality across Chinese art. Cacchione, O. & Lin, W.-C. (eds.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p. 92-113 22 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Representing Ming China in fifteenth-century Persianate painting
Yu, Y., 2018, In: Ming Studies. 2018, 78, p. 57-73 17 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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From the picture gallery of China: a glimpse into the Persianate collecting of Chinese religious painting in the late 14th to 15th centuries
Yu, Y., 1 Jun 2017, In: Aziatische Kunst. 47, 2, p. 13-20 8 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The Arab Empire in Chinese sources from the 8th century to the 10th century
Yu, Y., 2012, Arabia, Greece and Byzantium: cultural contacts in ancient and medieval times: Proceedings of the international symposium on the historical relations between Arabia, the Greek and Byzantine world (5th century BC - 10th century AD) Riyadh, 6-10 December, 2010., A.A.-H., , D. G. L., , M.A.-M. & , A.A.-A. (eds.). Riyadh: King Saud University, Vol. 2. p. 311-312 2 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter