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 British colonialism, a digital hub that examines how British colonial attitudes permeated and continue to influence medicine, art and conceptions of race in Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, New Zealand, South Asia, and the United States from the 16th century onward. The Innovation Fund is designed to encourage innovation and scholarship on enduring questions through the development of new ideas, working groups, conferences, technologies, datasets, and/or expanded access to scholarly resources. The Art Hx website explores the histories of objects found in collections across the globe using three frameworks: cultivating care, medicalized space, and pathologies of difference. Cultivating care considers the meanings of care in historical analysis and medical treatment. Medicalizing space examines how medicine has been used to interpret, categorize, and represent humans and their environment.  Pathologies of difference probes how colonialism, medicine and art have facilitated constructions of racial difference, disease, and health.  Fundamentally, Art Hx aims to engender new ways of recognizing how the past continues to shape the present, with the goal of inspiring material change.

Full article: Project awarded funding Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities