Current Students, Report from the Field

Report from the Field: Sarah Burford works on Kasten Exhibition at ICA

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Sarah at work this summer with binders of archival material for the exhibition Barbara Kasten: Stages

Sarah Burford, a third-year doctoral student in the History of Art program, spent the summer and fall of 2014 working as a Curatorial Research Fellow for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia on the exhibition Barbara Kasten: Stages (February 4 – August 16, 2015). The first major survey devoted to the artist Barbara Kasten situates her photographs, installations, and a variety of other works within contexts ranging from modernist theater and Bauhaus Constructivism to postmodernism and the California Light and Space movement. During her summer fellowship, supported by Bryn Mawr’s NEH Curatorial Internship Program, Sarah spent her days working with Curator Alex Klein at ICA and in area libraries and museums researching archival materials related to Kasten’s own exhibitions, early twentieth-century theater and photography, mid-century textile and crafts, and contemporary photographic practice to bolster the exhibition’s catalogue essays and interpretive materials. She is the author of the catalogue’s exhibition history and bibliography, and worked this fall to research and compile more than forty years’ worth of material documenting Kasten’s career from the 1970s through the present.

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Barbara Kasten, Construct 32, 1986, Cibachrome, 40 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

This semester, Sarah will enjoy seeing the final product come together while Barbara Kasten: Stages runs from February 4 – August 16, 2015. She currently works as a Teaching Assistant for introductory art history courses at Bryn Mawr, and with Professor Lisa Saltzman researching German art and visual culture between the World Wars.

Alumnae/i, Awards and Publications

Mark Sullivan (Ph.D., History of Art, 1981) publishes book on Henry David Thoreau in American Visual Culture

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Mark Sullivan (Ph.D., History of Art, 1981) has published a new book, Picturing Thoreau:  Henry David Thoreau in American Visual Culture (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015). Mark Sullivan is associate professor of art history and director of the Art History program at Villanova University.

From the publisher’s website:

As we approach the bicentennial, in 2017, of the birth of Henry David Thoreau, there is considerable debate and confusion as to what he may, or may not have, contributed to American life and culture. Almost every American has heard of Thoreau, but only a few are aware that he was deeply engaged with most of the important issues of his day, from slavery to “Manifest Destiny” and the rights of the individual in a democratic society. Many of these issues are still affecting us today, as we move toward the second quarter of the twenty-first century. By studying how various American artists have chosen to portray Thoreau over the years since the publication of Walden in 1854, we can gain a clear understanding of how he has been interpreted (or misinterpreted) throughout the years since his death in 1862. But along the way, we might also find something useful, for our times, in the insights that Thoreau gained as he wrestled with the most urgent problems being experienced by American society in his day.

 

Current Students, Report from the Field

Report from the Field: Christina Chandler (Archaeology) Spends Winter Break Excavating in UAE

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Christina Chandler, a first year graduate student in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, spent her winter break excavating at the site of Tell Abraq in the United Arab Emirates with Professor Peter Magee and fellow archaeology students. Tell Abraq is a late prehistoric settlement in the Emirate of Sharjah, UAE, where people lived 4000 years ago and participated in trade across the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Though excavating six days a week, Christina and the other students visited various archaeological sites and museums around the UAE, worked with artifacts in archaeological labs, and interacted with an international team of archaeologists. In their free time they explored Dubai and other modern cities.

This semester Christina is back on campus taking a full course load, including graduate seminars on Assyria, Athens, and mortuary practices in antiquity. Additionally, she is studying modern Arabic at Haverford College and Bryn Mawr.

Christina’s participation in the UAE excavation was made possible thanks to The Sharjah Directorate of Archaeology, Government of Sharjah, UAE; The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Bryn Mawr College; The Carus Trust within the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology; and Department funds from the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology.

 

Alumnae/i, Awards and Publications

Noël Valis (Ph.D., 1975) publishes novella, The Labor of Longing

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Noël Valis (Ph.D., Spanish Literature, 1975) has published a novella, The Labor of Longing (Charlotte, NC: Main Street Rag Publishing, 2014). Noël Valis is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for Spanish at Yale University.

From the publisher’s website:

“If ghosts dreamed, what would they dream? What are dreams after we are gone? Set in the late nineteenth-century New Jersey Pine Barrens, The Labor of Longing is an intensely told story of lost love and madness, lost souls and found dreams.”

The Labor of Longing was a Finalist for the Prize Americana for Prose.

Current Students, Events

Graduate Students celebrate end-of-term with annual Winter Formal

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The Graduate Student Association (GSA) hosted its yearly Winter Formal for graduate students in both the GSAS and GSSWSR – and their dates! Held on December 13, 2014, the event is one of the many opportunities for graduate students in all departments to socialize and have some fun. This year, the festivities were moved to the beautiful and grandiose Thomas Great Hall. Party-goers once again participated in what has become a tradition of the formal – gingerbread “house”-making – and enjoyed a night of mingling, drinking, dancing, contests and photo-taking!

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