Welcome Back!After saying our last goodbyes to Dr.Emmerson and to lazy days and hours ofsummer research, it’s time to get back tothe daily grind here in the Art HistoryDepartment. We have a busy fallsemester ahead, full of presentations,studying, and a plethora of papers towrite. Happy Fall Semester!

Words from our ChairToward the end of October, graduate researchers fromaround the nation will convene in Tallahassee for theDepartment of Art History’s twenty-seventh annual graduatestudent symposium. The schedule of speakers will offer anarray of interesting subjects and methodologies from acrossthe discipline over the weekend of October 23–24. We arealso pleased to be co-hosting with the John and MableRingling Museum of Art the thirty-fifth annual ByzantineStudies Conference, which will take place in Sarasota onNovember 5–8. The conference attracts scholars from aroundthe globe and offers a fascinating glimpse into the latestinvestigations and discoveries in Byzantine art and culture. Iencourage all to attend both events; further informationconcerning them is available on the department website.

We are particularly excited this semester to be hosting adynamic range of accomplished guest lecturers on campus,including Virginia Brilliant, associate curator at the RinglingMuseum in Sarasota (Sept. 29) and Alexander Nemerov,professor in the Department of the History of Art at YaleUniversity (Oct. 23). Please mark your calendars and join us.

Adam Jolles, Chair,Dept. of Art History

NEWSLETTERFall 2009Volume 3, Issue 2

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Props to ProfessorsDr. Karen Bearor contributed an essay to thecatalogue of the forthcoming exhibition“Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and NorthAmerica, 1920s-50s,” at the Newark Museum ofArt, February 17–May 16, 2010. This majorexhibition is the first to explore the Pan-Americanscope of geometric abstraction during the period,covering artists from Argentina, Brazil, UnitedStates, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Bearor’s essay,“Light Play in Abstract Art and Film,” covers workby painters Irene Rice Pereira (U.S), AbrahamPalatnik (Brazil), and Jesús Rafael Soto(Venezuela), who used light as an integral mediumin their constructions, and filmmakers Mary EllenBute (U.S.) and Dwinell Grant (U.S.), who madeshort animated films incorporating abstract shapes.

Dr. Michael Carrasco presented a paper entitled"Performativity and Presence in MayaHieroglyphs," in the session "Early Writing andAgency: Epigraphy and Agents in theArchaeological Record" at the 74th Annual Meetingof the Society of American Archaeology in Atlantalast April. He published "The First-PersonIndependent Pronoun in Classic Ch'olan," with co-authors Kerry Hull and Robert Wald, in thejournal Mexicon 31 (Apr. 2009). Hisanthology, Pre-Columbian Foodways:Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, andMarkets in Ancient Mesoamerica, co-editedwith John E. Staller, is forthcoming from Springer.

Dr. Adam Jolles published “On the Third Front:The Soviet Museum and Its Public during theCultural Revolution” (co-authored with KonstantinAkinsha) in Anne Odom and Wendy Salmond, eds.,Treasures into Tractors: The Selling of Russia’sCultural Heritage, 1917–37, Washington, D.C. andSeattle: Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardensand the University of Washington Press, 2009.

Dr. Stephanie Leitch spent the summer in fullcombat with rights managers for permission toreproduce images for her forthcoming book,Mapping Ethnography in Early Modern Germany(Palgrave). Among the few bright spots were atrip to Paris to see the collections and the Tarzanexhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly and theappearance of her article on "Hans Burgkmair'sPeoples of Africa and India (1508) and theOrigins of Ethnography in Print," in the Juneissue of The Art Bulletin.

Dr. Roald Nasgaard curated an exhibition, “TheAutomatiste Revolution: Montreal 1941-1960,” which opens at the Varley Art Gallery,Unionville, Ontario, on October 23, 2009, andruns until February 28, 2010. It will then travel tothe Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York,opening on March 19, 2010. The exhibition isaccompanied by a catalogue of the sametitle, co-authored by Dr. Nasgaard and RayEllenwood, published by Douglas & McIntyre,(Vancouver/Toronto/Berkeley).

Dr. Lauren Weingarden spent a month in Paristhis summer researching Gustave Courbet’spaintings of rural people and their culture inrelation to physiologies, mid-19th-century guidesto contemporary social types. She will presentthe results of her research in a paper, “BetweenSocial Reform and Stasis: Gustave Courbet andRural Physiologies,” at the 2009 Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium,“Fossilization & Evolution,” in Salt Lake City inOctober.

Congratulations!Jennifer Courts Naumann (Ph.D. candidate)received a Penelope Mason Dissertation WritingAward for the Fall 2009 semester.

Jennifer Pride (Ph.D. candidate) publisheda monograph with VDM Verlag, Germany, ThePoetics of Black: Manet's Baudelairean "Masked Ballat the Opera," available on Amazon.com. RecentlyJennifer was invited to serve as a regular contributingauthor to Kunstpedia.com, a database with articles onthe fine and decorative arts, in collaboration withRijksmuseum Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam,The Royal Collection of Buckingham Palace, andProject Gutenberg. In addition, Jennifer was asked tocontinue as Barry University's adjunct art historyinstructor and she was granted a Patricia RoseDoctoral Teaching Fellowship for the 2009-10 schoolyear in our department.

Nathan Timpano (Ph.D. candidate) is presenting“‘Die Hysterie ist jetzt Modekrankheit’: MunichSecessionism, Hysto-Theatrical Gesture, and Fin-de-siècle Visual Culture” at the annual conference of theGerman Studies Association in Arlington, Virginia, inOctober. He is currently serving as the 2009–2010Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow at the HarvardUniversity Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum.

Matt Whistler (M.A. student) is also presenting atSECAC: “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: TheConstruction of a Modern Memorial” in the session"Aesthetic Pollution: Art, Trauma and the Politics ofMemorials."

Upcoming SymposiaFlorida State University will host its 27th Annual Symposium for Graduate Students in the History of Art onOctober 23-24, 2009. Graduate students are invited to present 20-minute papers which will then be submittedfor publication in Athanor, a nationally distributed periodical sponsored by the Department of Art History and theCollege of Visual Arts, Theatre & Dance. Alexander Nemerov, Professor of American Art at Yale University, willpresent the keynote address. Please see the symposium page online for more information.

Please also join us for the thirty-fifth annual Byzantine Studies Conference which will take place at the FloridaState University and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida on November 5-8. TheByzantine Studies Conference is the annual meeting of members of the Byzantine Studies Association of NorthAmerica, and brings together over 175 scholars from all fields of Byzantine Studies. For more informationcontact the Local Arrangements Chair, Dr. Lynn Jones, at lajones@fsu.edu.

Sarah Buck (Ph.D. candidate) is presenting: “UnfoldingPiranesi’s (Re)Vision of the Eternal City in Le AntichitàRomane, Volume I (1756)” at The Southeastern CollegeArt Conference (SECAC) which will meet in Mobile,Alabama, October 21-24, and “Piranesi as Recorder,Restorer and Revisionist of Ancient Rome in Le AntichitàRomane, Volume I (1756)” at the Southeastern Societyof Architectural Historians Conference in Jackson,Mississippi.

Stassa Edwards (Ph.D. candidate) is presenting"'Almost Sure to Mislead': Rejlander, Darwin and theApes" at the “Dialogues of Animality” conference at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in October. Jennifer Feltman (Ph.D. candidate) is also presenting atSECAC this fall: “Moving the Soul, Spreading the Word:The Theology of Moral Intentionality at the University ofParis and its Impact on Thirteenth-Century SculpturalPrograms of the Last Judgment Throughout France” aswell as at the 35th Annual Byzantine Studies ConferenceProgram in Sarasota, Florida: “French Use of ByzantineIconography at Reims Cathedral: The Deësis on theNorth Transept Last Judgment Portal.”

Keri Fredericks (Ph.D. candidate) is presenting“Diachronic Readings: Eudora Welty’s 1930sPhotographs” in the session “History of Photography:Issues in Documentary” at SECAC.

Nicole Mahan (M.A. student) is presenting at SECAC aswell: "Krzysztof Wodiczko's 'If You See Something...":The Role of the Artist in the Reformulation of Democracyin Post-9/11 America" in the session, "AestheticPollution: Art, Trauma and the Politics of Memorials.”

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About our Keynote SpeakerAlexander Nemerov teaches and writesabout American visual culture from theeighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Hehas focused primarily on painting but latelyhas turned more and more to the study offilm, theater, and sculpture. His writing oftenanalyzes fiction and poetry alongside worksof visual art.

Nemerov has published several books aswell, including his most recent, Icons of Grief:Val Lewton’s Home Front Pictures (Universityof California Press, 2005). His other booksinclude The Body of Raphaelle Peale: StillLife and Selfhood, 1812-1824 (University ofCalifornia Press, 2001), which received aMillard Meiss Publication Fund Grant in1999, and Frederic Remington and Turn-of-the-Century America (Yale University Press,1995), which won a Choice OutstandingAcademic Book Award in 1996.

He is now at work on two projects: astudy of a single night’s performanceof Macbeth during Abraham Lincoln’spresidency; and a study of the artisticrelationship of his father, the poetHoward Nemerov, and his aunt, thephotographer Diane Arbus.

A message from AHAWelcome to all of our new graduates, and welcome back to all of those returning! Theupcoming academic year promises to be another one filled with many opportunities andevents. Our 27th Annual Graduate Symposium is scheduled on October 23-24, and the37th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference in Sarasota will be held on November 5-8.More information regarding both events can be found on our website. The Art HistoryAssociation, in conjunction with I AM 1789, hopes to organize many other culturalevents, including guest speakers and artists, as well as a Thesis Workshop to benefitthe writing of any Art History graduates who wish to participate. Finally, we would like tosay goodbye and best wishes to Dr. Richard Emmerson, who has accepted the positionas Dean of the School of Arts at Manhattan College in New York City.

President: Stephanie Bender

Vice President: Katie McCampbell

Treasurer: Samantha Ogden

And don’t forget…• To mark your calendars for the Thesis Forum (October 2) and

the 27th Annual Graduate Symposium (October 23-24)

• Keep your eyes peeled for UAHA bake sales. Delish!

ART HISTORYNEWSLETTER

Fall 2009Volume 3, Issue 1

EDITOR:SARAH HOWARD

ARH@WWW.FSU.EDU

WWW.FSU.EDU/~ARH

SAVE THEDATE

Spring 2010Registration Guide

Available

9/28

Thesis Forum

10/2

Spring 2010Registration

10/12

27th Annual GraduateStudent Symposium

10/23-10/24

Last day to defendthesis/dissertationfor fall graduation

10/26

Veteran’s Day

11/11

Thanksgiving Holiday

11/26-11/27