At the time of his fellowship, Benjamin Binstock was head of the critical studies area of the Art and Art Professions department at New York University. He is now an assistant professor at The Cooper Union. Binstock specializes in Northern Baroque and Renaissance Art, art historiography, and theory. He received his PhD from Columbia University and has taught there, at New York University, and CUNY. His recent book Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (Routledge: 2009) offers a revisionist account of Vermeer’s art and life, including his controversial claim that Vermeer’s eldest daughter painted several works attributed to her father. Binstock’s research continues to focus on traditional concerns such as biography and connoisseurship (authorship) that he takes in new directions informed by contemporary theory. Binstock was a Humanities Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in 2002-2003.