Maria Alessia Rossi and Henry Schilb of the Index of Medieval Art organized the all-day conference “Whose East? Defining, Challenging, and Exploring Eastern Christian Art” to unpack that question with scholars from across the globe. Presentations and discussions throughout the day made clear that the designation of “East” and the location…
Princeton’s campus is an ideal teaching ground for the study of architectural history, or, as Professor Basile Baudez puts it, “interrogating the complex relationships between present needs and past dreams.”
What began as a conference paper on camel iconography became part of an interdisciplinary effort to correct deep-rooted misrepresentations in art and its exhibition. A&A graduate student Mathilde Sauquet presented a paper in 2021 at the Tufts University History of Art and Architecture graduate symposium "The Elephant in the Room: An…
Professor Carolina Mangone convened the two-day conference “Finished? Early Modern Arts in the Imperfect Tense,” to explore “unfinished” or “imperfect” works of the Renaissance from c. 1400–1650. She pointed out that while the question of when a work of art is deemed finished is not unique to the early modern period, …
A&A graduate students Joe Bucciero and Elise Chagas have organized the discussion series "Know How: Workshops on the Histories of Art and Craft" to examine craft from the art historical perspective.
The series includes six workshops scheduled throughout the 2023–24…
PITHOS (Princeton-Ioannina-Thessaly On-Site Seminars) completed the second half of its inaugural program in the last week of September 2023, with participants from the University of Ioannina and the University of Thessaly joining Princeton participants on the Princeton…
In Artforum's September 2023 issue, Hal Foster reflects on all that's changed in the forty years since The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Bay Press, 1983) was published. Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco interviewed Foster at his home, where they discussed the volume’s successes and…
The Department of Art & Archaeology will be home to The Vidya Dehejia Professorship of South Asian Art.
Department of Art & Archaeology Chair Professor Rachael Z. DeLue shared the momentous news with the A&A community at the September 28th lecture “The Thief Who Stole My Heart” by Professor Vidya Dehejia, after whom…
Throughout history, artists have created works that reflect the concerns of their time. Art about Art, currently on view at Art on Hulfish, makes the case that while technique and media change across artists and centuries, these concerns linger.
Curated by Ronni Baer, Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967,…
A&A’s Olek Musiał and Maria Alessia Rossi were among the group of scholars from Princeton and Greek universities brought together at the Princeton Athens Center for Research and Hellenic Studies for the Center for Digital Humanities’ (CDH) Hellenic Studies Summer Institute.
“The Seeger Center was pleased to partner with the…
From Princeton Alumni Weekly, September 2023
An Art Professor Who Knew the Real Thing When He Saw ItBy Harrison Blackman ’17
It had only taken about 2,000 years, but according to a 1924 headline in The New York Times, apparently “the end of quests for the Holy Grail” had…
Ramon Espinoza ’26, a rising sophomore enrolled in the Program in Archaeology, participated in a summer 2023 field study in Germany at the site of a 1944 crash of a World War II airplane as part of the Department of Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) efforts to account for missing personnel. He joined a team led by Andrea Palmiotto of…
Professor Cheng-hua Wang, along with graduate students Mengge Cao, Shing-Kwan Chan, Yixu Eliza Chen, and Yutong Li, visited London in June to view the British Museum’s China’s Hidden Century exhibition and participate in the associated conference, "China's 1800s - Material and Visual Culture."
"Nineteenth-century Chinese art…
When Megan Coates sets off in the Greek port city of Thessaloniki, it's as though she’s moving through an extra dimension that activates all of its historical layers at once, with an especially brilliant Byzantine one. Coates spent summer 2023 in Greece, first to participate in the Mount Menoikeon Seminar held by the Seeger Center, next for an…
Reposted from Asbury Park Press
Princeton student, Wall native, discovers ancient Egyptian cemeteryBy Ryan Forgosh, Asbury Park Press, Published July 5, 2023
It wasn't long ago that Wall native Emily Smith-Sangster was excitedly flipping through the pages of National Geographic as a child and…
We are delighted to announce that access to The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University online database is free to all users as of July 1, 2023. This change has been made possible by a generous bridge grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the ongoing support of the Department of Art & Archaeology. The Index looks forward…
One of my second graders recently informed me that my superpower is super vision. “You’re like an X-ray!” he squealed into the screen excitedly. I teach art classes over Zoom to elementary and middle-school students, and…
By Brett Tomlinson
Published in the June 2023 Issue of Princeton Alumni Weekly
Jack Tannous *10, an associate professor of history and Hellenic studies, met Shaun Cason ’23 in classic…
On Monday, May 29th, the Department of Art & Archaeology celebrated our graduating Class of '23 at the Carl Fields Center. Graduates and their families were greeted with a festive buffet and poignant slide show capturing moments throughout students' years at Princeton.
Chair of the Department of Art & Archaeology…
The Sassoons exhibition, on view at The Jewish Museum through August 13th, in which intriguing objects tell the story of four generations who migrated across as many countries, evolved partly from a Princeton A&A course co-taught by A&A Professor…
Languages of Art Writing is a data curation project focused on the terminology employed in art criticism, artists’ statements, and manifestos published in Western Europe from the late 1940s to the present. It has been developed with the support of a 2021–2023…
Jointly appointed in both the Department of Art & Archaeology and the Lewis Center for the Arts, Tina Campt concluded a Spring 2023 semester that was as dynamic and inspiring as it was full. In addition to teaching an undergraduate course and a graduate seminar, Campt launched the Princeton Collaboratorium for Radical Aesthetics, hosting…
Students and faculty from A&A and Classics joined their counterparts from Greek Universities at the Princeton Athens Center in May 2023 to launch the Seeger Center’s new PITHOS (Princeton-Ioannina-Thessaly On-Site…
Professor Bert Smith is the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching in the Department of Art & Archaeology and Classics for the 2022-23 academic year. His extensive contributions this year have included a weekly meeting with graduate students in Fall 2022, a Spring 2023 course on Hellenistic Art, an Index…
Four members of the Index of Medieval Art staff participated in the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo from May 11th to 13th. The ICMS attracts thousands of scholars interested in medieval studies from late antiquity to the early modern period and a wide range of specializations,…
Professor Holzman’s Spring 2023 ART 401: “Introduction to Archaeology” was a portal to a fascinating realm; through guest speakers, interaction with objects, and demonstrations, Holzman’s experience-driven approach brought the field of archaeology to life – on one occasion transporting students to the ancient past.
Each week students…
As Janson-LaPalme Scholar-in-Residence during the 2023 Spring semester, Pamela O. Long has enriched teaching and scholarship at Princeton through a workshop, a hands-on class demonstration, and a conference.
"I learned so much from everyone," said Long, "including the graduate students in the one-day workshop and the…
The Humanities Council has named A&A Professor Bridget Alsdorf among 2023-24 Old Dominion Research Professors. Her project as Old Dominion Research Professor is a book titled Shadowed: Intimacy and Collaboration in Modern Scandinavian Art.
The professorship provides additional research time for…
Medieval Textiles across Eurasia, c. 300–1400 by Patricia Blessing, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Eiren L. Shea was published online by Cambridge University Press on May 8, 2023 and will be…
By Mikhaila Friel and Samantha Grindell
May 4, 2023, 4:00 AM EDT
King Charles will undoubtedly be monarch for a shorter period than his predecessor,…
Professor Carolyn Yerkes’ ART 447: “Siegecraft: Architecture, Warfare, and Media” examined warfare as the subject matter for art and architecture in the early modern world. Yerkes asserts that “Siegecraft was an art more complex than painting, more powerful than sculpture, and more monumental than any building in the early modern world.” …
A&A Chair Professor Rachael Z. DeLue delivered the Princeton University Art Museum's annual Keating lecture, titled “Against the Grain, or What We Can Learn from Early American Museums that Got it Wrong.”
DeLue began by describing two early museums: Charles Willson Peale’s Philadelphia Museum, open from 1786 to 1849, and Princeton…
A&A Lecturer Jessica Williams Stark’s course ART 388: “Fascist Aesthetics: Women & Photography Between the World Wars” examined the rise of fascism through the lens of the female photographer in the interwar period. Alongside key theoretical texts on race, gender, colonialism, and exile, the course explored a diverse range of work by…
Professor Doherty’s FRS183 “Portrait of the Artist As….” first-year undergraduate seminar explores works of literary fiction that depart from the model of the Bildungsroman — and specifically the "artist’s novel" as developed in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister (1795) and epitomized by Joyce’s Portrait of…
This semester, Princeton University Art Museum Director James Steward is teaching ART 488: “The Modern Museum: Between Preservation & Action.” The course raises an array of questions centered on the role of today’s museum. How must it respond to the digital age and to a world of increasingly porous borders? Can it run the risk of…
Under the leadership of Princeton University’s Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities Tina Campt, the Lewis Center for the Arts and Department of Art and Archaeology have launched the Princeton Collaboratorium for Radical Aesthetics. Two special events will inaugurate the new…
Professor Bridget Alsdorf is among the 171 scholars, artists, writers, and scientists to receive the 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, Alsdorf and two fellow Princeton scholars were selected from a group of 2,500 applicants.
“Like Emerson, I believe…
Professor Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann led a trip to Central Europe over spring break with seven A&A graduate students for a week of learning, camaraderie, and indelible experiences. The group visited Czechia and Austria.
Kaufmann’s aim was “to enable students to experience architecture and sculpture and urban sites directly, not to…
ART 431, “Living with Others: Art, Culture, and Identity in Medieval Spain,” taught by Pamela Patton, who also directs the Index of Medieval Art, traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to discuss works made by the medieval Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula with Dr. Julia Perratore, Assistant Curator of…
By Emelike Obinna
Mar 26, 2023
The EMOWAA (Edo Museum of West African Art) Trust is delighted to announce the appointments of Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu, Nigerian art…
Visual artist Kyoko Ibe and writer, performer, activist, and lawyer, Reginald Dwayne Betts, placed paper at center stage earlier this year with the Lewis Center for the Arts' March production of Betts' Felon: And American Washi Tale at McCarter's Berlind Theatre from March 2-4, 2023. Paper became the leitmotif for a…
On Humanities Advocacy Day, March 20, 2023, A&A Chair Professor Rachael DeLue and Tera Hunter, Professor of African American Studies and History and Acting Chair of Princeton’s Humanities Council, met with Members of Congress to garner federal support for the humanities. They were part of a New Jersey delegation that also…
Co-taught by A&A Professors Bridget Alsdorf and Irene Small, ART 565: “Seminar in Modernist Art and Theory: Before and After Gender” revisits major approaches to feminist art history from the nineteenth century to the present, while considering how queer, trans, masculinity, and decolonial studies have transformed art-historical analysis…
Professor Tina Campt, Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities in the Department of Art and Archeology and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, was lead convener of a collaborative activation aimed at creating a more expansive vocabulary from the perspective of what it means to be Black provocatively…
2022–2023 Art Hx Artist-in-Residence Nate Lewis recently visited Princeton’s Special Collections before discussing his work in conversation with A&A Ph.D. candidate Jessica Womack, who works as the Art Hx project manager.
Visiting Special CollectionsGuided by Art Hx’s…
Professor Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s ART 209 “Between Renaissance and Revolution: Baroque Art in Europe” surveys changes in European art from the end of the Renaissance until the Age of Revolution c. 1800. A highlight of the course is visiting Princeton University Art Museum’s collection to examine works firsthand. “Certainly, my…
Artnet News exposed ChatGPT's limits as a research tool when a chat about art theory resulted in citations by A&A Professors Hal Foster and Carolyn Yerkes that do not exist.
When asked for comment, Yerkes replied: "It's unreal."
And Foster passed along author Ben Lerner's follow-up ChatGPT exchange:
…
ART 343 “Topics in 19th-Century Art: Artists and Their Subjects” explores the various representations of the relationship between artist and subject in the period between the French Revolution and the turn of the nineteenth century. Throughout the semester, lecturer Carmen Rosenberg-Miller *22, whose own work centers around philosophies of…
ART 228 “Art and Power in the Middle Ages” looks at politics and religion reflected in the art of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa between 300 and 1200 C.E., exploring the art of great courts as well as migratory societies and of religions including Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam. Fundamental to the understanding…
From Brown Daily Herald Article:
Artist-scholar, DJ Madison Moore performs at Brown Arts Institute event;Moore discusses history, vestige of Black, queer nightlife following live performance
By Ryan Smith
The Brown Daily Herald Senior Staff Writer
February 26, 2023
…
Join us in-booth on Friday for a special presentation on Global Art Reimagined. Elizabeth Pilliod of Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey and Thomas Kaufmann of Princeton University will outline some of the new approaches to global art history that inform their forthcoming Pearson…
With funding from a Council of Humanities Flash Grant, the Index of Medieval Art has supported a displaced Ukrainian scholar and incorporated the records on the mosaics of St. Sophia, a UNESCO world heritage site in Kyiv, in its online database. Art History Specialist for the Index Maria Alessia Rossi conceived the project…
The nine-volume set Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves (Princeton University Press 2021) edited by the Tang Center's Dora Ching has won the Bei Shan Tang book prize, which recognizes research in Chinese art history.
"I am deeply honored to receive the inaugural Bei Shan Tang…
Excerpt from "A Nigerian, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Resumes Duties At Oxford As Distinguished Professor," The Nigerian Voice, February 5, 2023
A leading Nigerian academic in the United States, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu of Princeton University, has assumed duties at Oxford University, one of the oldest and most respected educational…
The Medieval Academy of America has announced the 2023 prize recipients, including Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize winner A&A alumnus John Lansdowne *19 and Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize co-recipients Julia Gearhart (A&A’s Director of Visual Resources) and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Assistant Professor Medieval Art and…
Excerpt from:
By Julian Lucas
January 21, 2023
It often takes a few…
The Historians of British Art (HBA) annually awards prizes to outstanding books on the history of British art, architecture, and visual culture. Anna Arabindan-Kesson’s Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton, and Commerce in the Atlantic World (Duke University Press 2021) received this year’s award for a single-authored…
Excerpt from:
Sachs Scholarship awarded to two Princeton seniors, one Oxford studentEmily Aronson, Office of Communications
Jan. 19, 2023
Princeton seniors Shaun Cason and Anna Allport and University of Oxford student Isabelle (Izzy) Stuart have been named recipients of the Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960…
A&A doctoral student Iheanyi Onwuegbucha is among the co-curators who assisted A&A and African American studies professor Chika Okeke-Agulu in producing the first museum survey of Samuel Fosso’s work in the United States: Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts, …
We are very pleased to announce that as of July 1, 2023, a paid subscription will no longer be required for access to the Index of Medieval Art database. This transition was made possible by a generous grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the ongoing support of the Index’s parent department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton…
Excerpt from New York Times, Critic's Pick, Jan. 5, 2023
Within Himself, an African Photographer Finds Multitudes A studio portraitist turns the lens on flamboyant alter egos in his first solo U.S. museum exhibition at Princeton.By Arthur Lubow
"In the aftermath of the civil war in Nigeria that devastated his…
Congratulations to Department of Art & Archaeology graduate students Mengge Cao, Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, and Michael Zhang along with Shruti Sharma (Electrical and Computer Engineering), for winning first place and $15,000 in the humanities and social sciences division of the 17th Annual Keller Center Innovation Forum with their enthralling…
Travel brings theory to life, vibrantly showcasing history, culture, and architecture like no image or text ever could. Students in two Humanities Council courses experienced this over fall break when they visited Rome.
Team-taught by Carolina Mangone (art & archaeology) and Moulie Vidas (religion and Judaic studies), the…
Basile C. Baudez’s Inessential Colors: Architecture on Paper in Early Modern Europe (Princeton University Press, 2021) is this year’s winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion. The judges consider the monograph “a landmark work…
Featured on Princeton’s homepage, Professor Rachael DeLue’s course “Science and its Fictions in the Long 19th Century” trains students across disciplines to see images with a critical eye. Students hone their visual literacy by looking at early images purporting to represent science, including John James Audubon's “The Birds of…
Convened in Canberra in November 2022, the “Object Mobilities” workshop brought together scholars from the United States and Australia to speak about objects on the move. Most surprising was the wide range of objects under discussion: from radioactive samples of Persian ceramics in nineteenth-century British collections (in a paper by Mary…
Students from ART 369/EAS 386: “The Arts and Archaeology of the Chinese Court” and ART 493/EAS 493: “Narrative and Visuality in China,” co-taught by the Department of Art & Archaeology’s Cheng-hua Wang with Chao-Hui Jenny Liu and Paize Keulemans from the Department of East Asian Studies, respectively, had the incredible opportunity to…
On November 11th and 12th, The Index of Medieval Art hosted a workshop and conference on the theme of “Looking at Language,” which brought together eight scholars in a wide range of specializations to share their expertise on the multifarious relationships between language and works of medieval art. On the first day, the speakers met with…
Just released by Cambridge University Press, Patricia Blessing’s Architecture and Material Politics in the Fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire explores the emergence of Ottoman architecture in the 15th century and its connection with broader geographical contexts. Analyzing how transregional exchange shaped building…
Artist Renee Magnanti gave students of Sam Holzman’s ART 504: “Studies in Greek Architecture” hands-on instruction in the techniques of encaustic painting. Having worked in the medium for over 30 years herself, Magnanti has developed her own recipe and method and has established a singular style of carving in encaustic. Her…
Denise Murrell, Tisch Curator at Large for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, welcomed to the museum students in Bridget Alsdorf’s ART 450: “19th-Century European Art: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism:…
Excerpt from "Simone Leigh’s Assembly of Black Feminist Creativity in Venice Left Me in Awe," by Folasade Ologundudu, in Artnet, October 21, 2022. …
Josiah McElheny, renowned interdisciplinary artist best known for his works combining glass with other materials, recently spoke with students in HUM 434/ART 404: "Counterworlds: Innovation and Rupture in Communities…
Anna Arabindan-Kesson, associate professor in the departments of art & archaeology and African American studies, was awarded the 2022 Dean for Research Innovation Fund for new ideas in the humanities and social sciences in support of her project Art Hx: Visualizing the medical legacies of…