Binghamton Art History Department releases statement on inclusivity

For over three decades, the Art History Department has been committed to the cross-cultural, global study of art, visual culture, architecture and the built environment. This has never simply been a decision regarding disciplinary “methodology” but rather, we believe, a profoundly principled commitment to questioning the Eurocentric, patriarchal and class-based biases ingrained in the field and our society at large and to excluding all forms of discrimination and prejudice, regardless of the prevailing political climate.

As a department that welcomes a very international student body and strives to model an inclusive transnational community open to all regardless of nationality, race, gender identification or sexual preference, we reaffirm our commitment to a more egalitarian engagement with world cultures and stand in solidarity with all those struggling to realize that vision in academia and beyond.

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Welcome back!

A warm welcome to all new and returning students as the spring 2017 semester officially begins. For more information about Binghamton Art History and to stay up-to-date on our departmental events and activities, please follow this blog, visit our website and like us on Facebook.

 

Graduate Activities: Mariah Postlewait and Lauren Cesiro

Congratulations to doctoral students Mariah Postlewait and Lauren Cesiro, who have been selected as HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) Scholars for 2016-18: 

The HASTAC Scholars fellowship program is an innovative student-driven community of graduate and undergraduate students. Each year a new cohort is accepted into the program. More than 800 HASTAC Scholars in dozens of disciplines have been sponsored by 145 colleges and universities–ranging from small liberal arts colleges to large Research 1 institutions. We are building a community of students working at the intersection of technology and the arts, humanities and sciences.

From the Visual Resources Collection: Archivision Additions

It is exciting to announce the addition of over 15,000 new images to our Shared Shelf Collection (accessible via ARTStor). These new modules from Archivision include 3,000 Italian artworks, ancient Roman frescoes, mosaics, sculpture and masterworks—paintings and sculpture—from the Medieval to Baroque periods.

In addition there are architectural works spanning the contemporary (Millennium Park in Chicago; works by Gehry, Pelli, Calatrava and Libeskind) to the ancient world (the mosaics from Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily; Ephesus and other monuments of the Roman empire) and in between (French chateaux and gardens; Byzantine architecture in Mystras; Venice). Other highlights include Frank Lloyd Wright, major murals of Diego Rivera and excellent coverage of Oxford. There are images featuring Russia as a highlight  (over 2000 images including the major palaces and gardens around St. Petersburg and coverage in Moscow.)

The group also holds material from Paris, including several important hôtels, and London–extensive coverage of Chiswick House and grounds, plus many of Wren’s churches. For Classics there are ancient Roman drawings scanned directly from original 19th century volumes (348 plans, sections and elevations) and coverage of the Elgin marbles. Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum, including their amazing cast collection, provides survey support. A collection from Mexico is also included (Mexico City, Cuernavaca, Puebla and Taxco.) For the contemporary period, there is new architecture in London and in Los Angeles, including Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall and complete coverage of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA, and important works by Mackintosh like the Glasgow School of Art and the House of an Art Lover.

Faculty Activities: Tom McDonough in Social Histories of Art

Associate Professor Tom McDonough‘s introductions and commentary for two of T. J. Clark’s essays were recently published in  Social Histories of Art: A Critical Anthology, (les presses du réel, June 2016) under the auspices of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art. This anthology gathers together significant art historical primary texts and situates them in the discipline’s history:

The history of art is not singular. This young discipline, which since the nineteenth century has attempted to conquer its autonomy as a science, is to be read and practiced (preferably, at least) by relating and linking it to a context — diverse, burgeoning, and sometimes unstable, but rich: such is the purpose that governs this book.
Repeatedly, throughout the twentieth century, voices were heard proposing a reading of artistic production informed by material, economic, political, or institutional conditions. This anthology in two volumes makes these voices resonate by proposing a path that sweeps that century, from 1930 to 2000, between Europe and the United States. It allows us to read, chronologically, thirty-three texts, some of which are little known, often translated into French for the first time, and presented and commented by today’s art historians. From one chapter to another, in connection with an art history that leads the reader from the Florentine Renaissance to photography, from the art of the Netherlands to the recent history of museums, these extracts debate Marxist readings and gender studies, technical approaches and theoretical essays, without ignoring the crises, tensions, aporias, and even the silences that have punctuated this history.

Welcome back!

The Binghamton University Nature Preserve.

A warm welcome to all new and returning students as the Fall 2016 semester officially begins! For more information about Binghamton Art History and to stay up-to-date on our departmental events and activities, please subscribe to this blog, visit our website and like us on Facebook.

Today: #doingdah–Omeka workshop