NEWSLETTER Fall 2007 Volume 1, Issue 2 Taking on the World The tendency to focus on the material World Arts. With Michael Carrasco, Talinn production of the “West,” and the dichotomy of Grigor, and Susan Lee as faculty teaching center and periphery that such privileging in such diverse areas as Pre-Columbian art engenders, has been an issue of art historical and architecture, Middle Eastern modern debate since the 1970s. How do we expand architecture and (post) Colonial discourse, the canon to reflect the history of art and the and the Arts of Asia, this is an exciting time changing demographic of the classroom? for art history at FSU. What methodologies best elucidate the unique issues of divergent cultures? The spring course offerings in World Arts will include: Arts of Asia, Islamic Art and In our efforts to accurately reflect trends in art Architecture, World Arts: Representations historical scholarship, we have expanded our and Reality, Methods and Theories of World course offerings to include a concentration in Arts, and Japanese Prints. Go International! Earn art history credit this summer with any of and the Uffizi Gallery. Ph.D. candidate these exciting study abroad opportunities Frank Nero leads 6- and 12- week offered through International Programs programs. The recently expanded itinerary www.international.fsu.edu: now includes an extended visit to Giotto's Arena Chapel in Padua; an outing to the The London Study Centre: located in the “ideal” renaissance city of Pienza, planned historic Thanet House in the Bloomsbury in the mid-fifteenth century by Pope Pius II District, a block from the British Museum. and architect Bernardo Rossellino; and a Prof. Robert Neuman offers two 6-week tour of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in courses at both the undergraduate and Venice that gives students the opportunity to graduate levels. “Museums of London” explore the art of the Italian Futurists. considers a range of institutions, from big national collections, like the British Museum The Grand Tour: a multi-country excursion and the National Gallery, to small personal that takes students from London to Paris, gems like Sir John Soane’s Museum. Berlin, Venice, Florence, and Rome. “Buildings of London” surveys two thousand Included are day-trips to Versailles, years of architecture from ancient Roman Auschwitz, and Pompeii. Ph.D. candidate, Londinium to recent postmodern designs. Ceil Bare, leads this brand-new 4-week program. The Artistic Avant-Garde: this 6-week program addresses the rise and fall of the European avant-garde. Asst. Prof. Adam Jolles uses Paris’s unparalleled cultural resources to demonstrate how and why art changed so dramatically in the years between the French Revolution and the First World War. The Florence Study Center: located within the Palazzo Alessandri—a fifteenth-century urban palace—the study center is a short stroll from the marbled Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, Fall 2007 Newsletter Page 2 of 6 The Museum Object Class: an Example of Participatory Pedagogy Developed by Ph.D. candidate Lana Burgess, the Over the past two years students have curated exhibitions undergraduate Museum Object course is an interactive that explored diverse topics. Kapow! A Cultural Overview experience that provides students with the opportunity to of Comic Book Heroes and Icons (December 2, 2005 to curate an exhibition in Strozier Library. January 20, 2006) was selected from the Robert M. Ervin, Jr., Collection, which includes some of the most enduring Scheduled as a 3-hour seminar that meets once a week, names in comic book history. Featuring Batman, the first half of the semester is devoted to discussions and Spiderman, Superman, and Catwoman, the display presentations, while the last 8 weeks are organized as a explored the role of heroes, anti-heroes, sidekicks, and workshop, where students interact directly with objects in villains. Fetishizing Horror for the Silver Screen: Selling Strozier Library’s Special Collections. Slashers and Sex (April 14 to May 26, 2006), drawn from the Cinema Promotional Materials Collection, focused on Students explore the diverse elements of museum horror film advertisements containing provocative sexual exhibitions, including accessibility, creativity, design, imagery. More Than Words: The Historical Significance of evaluation, interpretation, and problem solving. Working Text and Image (December 1, 2006 to January 26, 2007) together to conceptualize a project, participants define the considered the evolution of books, from how they exhibition goals and target audience, develop the exhibit’s functioned to how they were manufactured. Got Herb? A main message, and research its themes. Additional “Special Collection” of Botanicals and Herbals (April 16 to responsibilities include drafting interpretative materials, July 16, 2007) included objects from the Louise producing didactic panels, displaying the objects, installing Richardson Herbal Collection. This show explored the and lighting the cases, and evaluating the show. various ways in which humans use plants. Working with Strozier’s Special Collections allows students The undergraduate Museum Object course is an excellent to handle original artifacts and acquire the skills necessary interactive course that provides students with a base of to work in museums and libraries. Increasing the theoretical knowledge and the practical skills necessary to understanding of exhibitions enhances cultural and pursue a museum career. Ph.D. candidate Teri Yoo will perceptual awareness for undergraduates. teach this class in the spring. Thesis Forum Mark your calendars: Thesis Forum is November 7. Second year M.A. students Kristie Cox, Karlyn Griffith, and Jennifer Pride will present the state of their research. This is an excellent opportunity to support your colleagues and contribute to art historical discourse. Kristie Cox is working with Profs. Lee and Jones on her topic, “Relics, Religious Imagery, and Warfare in Byzantium and Medieval Japan.” As part of her research, Ms. Cox visited New York to examine a painted image on a suit of Japanese armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Karlyn Griffith is working with Prof. Emmerson on the 89 miniatures of the fourteenth-century play, Le Jour du Jugement, MS Besançon 579. As part of her research, Ms. Griffith traveled to France to examine the manuscript, which is in the collection of the Bibliothèque municipale, Besançon. Jennifer Pride, directed by Prof. Weingarden, is writing about Manet's Masked Ball at the Opera and Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal.” Ms. Pride visited New York and Washington D.C. this summer to conduct part of her research. Page 3 of 6 Fall 2007 Newsletter Professors and Graduate Students Present Papers Asst. Prof. Michael Carrasco will present “From Field to Prof. Robert Neuman presented “Disneyland's Main Hearth: An Earthly Interpretation of Maya Mythology” at the Street, U.S.A., and Its Sources in Hollywood, U.S.A.” at 40th Annual Chac Mool Conference at the University of the annual joint meeting of the American Culture Calgary in November. Association and the Popular Culture Association in Boston last March, and attended the annual conference of the Prof. Paula Gerson presented “Painted Romanesque Society of Architectural Historians in Pittsburgh last April. Monumental Sculpture: Essential or Skin-Deep?” at “Art as Historical Text,” a conference held at Ben Gurion Assoc. Prof. Lauren Weingarden presented “Benjamin’s University in Israel in May. Elective Affinities: Reassessing ‘The Paris of the Second Empire’ in Baudelaire” at the XVIIIth Congress of the Asst. Prof. Talinn Grigor presented “Tehran: A International Comparative Literature Association in Rio de Revolution in Making” at the Middle Eastern Cities Janeiro this past summer. Colloquium held at the University of Michigan, October 3-5. Karlyn Griffith (M.A. student) will present Performing While in Ann Arbor, she also presented “Of Heritage & “ Courtly Love and Ivory Composite Caskets” at the Inventions: a Lost Ferdawsi, his Modern Tomb, and the Southeastern College Art Association annual conference in Utopic Future in 1920 Iran” at a public lecture, and Charleston, West Virginia, October 17-20. “Imperialism of Ancient Heritage in the 1970s Iran” at a teaching workshop. She will present “Dolling-up Yerevan: Julianne Parse-Sandlin (Ph.D. candidate) will present Avant-garde Urbanism in Post-Soviet Politics” at the “Louis XIII and the Church of the Oratory: An Expression Central Eurasian Studies Society, 8th annual conference, of Sovereign Authority” at the Southeast Chapter of the at the University of Washington in Seattle on October 17. Society of Architectural Historian’s annual conference, which will be held October 24-27 in Nashville, Tennessee. Asst. Prof. Lynn Jones presented “When is a Coptic Textile not Coptic?” at the annual Byzantine Studies Nathan J. Timpano (Ph.D. candidate) presented “Der Conference at the University of Toronto October 11-14. Dr. Märchenkönig & the American Imagination: Understanding Jones, President of the BSC, will discuss the Coptic textile the Medieval and the Exotic in the Early Works of William fragment recently found in Special Collections at Strozier Merritt Chase” at the “Research on the Formation of Library. Artists” conference in Munich, October 9-11. Faculty Publications Asst. Prof. Lynn Jones’s new book Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght’amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership is forthcoming in November from Ashgate Publishing. It provides