Philip Geisler, M.A.

Philip Geisler studied Art History, Islamic Studies, and Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin and at Harvard University. He previously obtained a degree in Journalism and Media Economics at the Medienakademie Berlin. 

His dissertation, completed in 2026 and awarded the 2026 Dissertation Prize of the German Association for West Asia and North Africa Studies, re-writes the history of displaying the arts of Islam in the museum through performance to more fully conceive of how imperialism, traditionalism and Islamic theology, Islamophilia, and the secular universalism defining the production of heritage have orchestrated multisensory engagements with ‘the Islamic.’ The thesis argues that as part of material displays, artistic live performance has co- and re-authored the meanings of historical objects throughout this history of display and has activated the arts of Islam in performative constellations that reconstitute the terms of the field itself. Philip has previously published on early modern Ottoman architecture and urban configurations, the connections of architecture, colonial visual culture, and dance heritage, and on contemporary architectural branding and place making in the UAE.

From 2013 to 2019, he worked at the Forum Transregionale Studien as a member of the research program Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices. In 2022, he was a Research Fellow at the 4A_Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics, a joint program of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, where he pursued research on the transregional heritage, preservation, and consumer culture of Islamic crafts and prepared two exhibitions, one on the ecology, art history, and sonic aesthetics of the reed flute nay and another on the sonic display and music programming of the exhibition Rhythm and Color: Music Scenes on Indian Album Paintings from the 16th to 18th Centuries at Berlin’s Museum of Islamic Art (2023). In 2023, he was a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Art & Art History and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University. He is a recipient of the Ottoman & Turkish Studies Association’s Sydney N. Fisher Prize, the Krupp Foundation Fellowship, the Elsa Neumann Fellowship, and is a former fellow of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.

As a music dramaturg, he co-founded and currently co-directs the trans-traditional Trickster Orchestra, which won the German Jazz Award as Best Large Ensemble, the TONALi Award for Contemporary Music, the German Composer’s Award, the WDR Liminal Music Prize, and the Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge Prize. In 2024, the ensemble was included in the federal government’s Excellent Orchestra Landscape Germany. Philip Geisler has previously worked for the Berlin Philharmonic as well as for jazz ensembles within the cosmos of the ECM Records label. In 2020, he became an international nominator of the Aga Khan Music Awards. In his ongoing journalistic activities, he publishes in the TRAFO Blog for Transregional Research, the VAN music magazine, and hosts discussions on art, literature, and music.

Philip Geisler is currently Scientific Coordinator of the Getty-funded program Connected Teams: Practicing Transcultural Art Histories under the Conditions of Ecological Crises and Digital Transformations: India, Latin America, and Europe, a collaboration of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and the Departamento de Historia del Arte at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá.