Middle Atlantic Symposium

Held annually over two days in March, the Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art (MAS) offers an opportunity for advanced graduate students from universities in the mid-Atlantic region to present their original research to the public, and brings together academic and museum communities in the greater Washington area. Each year a student from the department is among those who present their work at the symposium.

The 54th Annual Sessions of the Symposium will be held on Friday and Saturday, March 1st and 2nd, 2024. The symposium will begin on Friday evening, March 1st, when Stephanie Porras, Professor of Art History and Chair of the Newcomb Art Department at Tulane University, will deliver this year’s George Levitine Lecture at the University of Maryland. The title of her talk, which she will deliver at 6 pm in the Lecture Hall (ASY 2203) of Parren J. Mitchell Art-Sociology Building, is "How not to do Global Art History."

Stephanie Porras's research and teaching encompasses the visual and material cultures of Northern Europe, Spanish and Dutch colonial holdings in Asia and the Americas. Her recent books include The First Viral Images: Maerten de Vos, Antwerp print and the early modern world and, with co-editor Stephen Campbell, The Routledge Companion to the Global Renaissance. She is outgoing Reviews Editor for the Art Bulletin and serves on the editorial board for the Netherlands Yearbook for the History of Art.

The talk will be preceded by a tea at 5 pm in the Atrium of the same building. A dinner, by subscription, will follow Professor Porras's talk. For this, please register here.

Student Papers, Saturday March 2nd

Registration required. Please register here

Program

Morning Session, 10:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Welcome by Steven Nelson, The Center
Moderated by Peter M. Lukehart, The Center

Matthew Sova, Johns Hopkins University
Pilgrimage and Performance in the Tomb of Christ Reconstructions of Mainz
Introduced by Nino Zchomelidse

Tony Cui, University of Maryland
Brueghelian Temperature: Pieter Bruegel’s Months and Ideas of Climate Temperance
Introduced by Anthony Colantuono

Emily DuVall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Visualizing Power: François Ier’s Royal Entries
Introduced by Tania String

Courtney Middleton, George Washington University
Mickalene Thomas’s “Jet Blue” and the Complexities of Pleasure
Introduced by Bibiana Obler

Afternoon Session, 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Welcome by Kaira M. Cabañas, The Center
Moderated by Tess Korobkin, University of Maryland

Nina Blomfield, Bryn Mawr College
Ephemeral Decorating: Japanese Paper Goods in American Domestic Space
Introduced by Lisa Saltzman

Grace McCormick, American University
Mickalene Thomas’s “A Moment’s Pleasure”: Reclaiming Black Women’s Place in the History of Black Power
Introduced by Nika Elder

Ash Duhrkoop, University of Virginia
The Painter as Geologist: Surface and Depth in the Paintings of Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu
Introduced by Henry Skerrit

Erin Riley-Lopez, Temple University
Utopian Tomorrows
Introduced by Mariola V. Alvarez

Friday, March 3rd, 6 pm

The 53rd Annual Sessions of the Symposium will be held on Friday and Saturday, March 3rd and 4th, 2023. The symposium will begin on Friday evening, March 3rd, when Paul Chaat Smith, citizen of the Comanche Nation and Curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, will deliver this year’s George Levitine Lecture at the University of Maryland. The title of his talk, which he will deliver at 6 pm, is "Weaponizing Nostalgia: Notes on the Absence and Presence of Indians in American Life."

53rd Annual Sessions
Saturday, March 4, 2023
10:15 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
West Building Lecture Hall
National Gallery of Art

Morning Session, 10:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Introduction and session moderated by Steven Nelson, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

Annie Maloney, Emory University
“Saving Roman Painting: The Antiquarian Reproductions of Pietro Santi Bartoli (1635–1700)”
Introducer: Sarah McPhee

Jordan Hillman, University of Delaware
“Jules-Alexandre Grün: ‘An Enemy of the Authorities’?”
Introducer: Margaret Werth

Maria Puzyreva, University of Pennsylvania
“Hidden in the Landscape: Imperial Propaganda in Tokuriki Tomikichirō’s Wartime Prints”
Introducer: Julie Nelson Davis

Marco Polo Juarez Cruz, University of Maryland
“Entering Muralist Abstraction: Reimaging the Mexican Pavilion at the Osaka World’s Fair (1970)”
Introducer: Abigail McEwen

Afternoon Session, 2:00–4:00 p.m.

Session moderated by Emily Catherine Egan, University of Maryland

Kyle Marini, Penn State University
“Two-Ply Art History: Parsing Threads of Iconographic Continuity and Rupture in Colonial Inca Embroidery”
Introducer: Amara Solari

Kate Sunderlin, Virginia Commonwealth University
“Medium and Myth in a Southern City: Plaster in the Studio of Edward Virginius Valentine and the Valentine Museum”
Introducer: Tobias Wofford

Kathryn Carney, University of Pittsburgh
“Modernizing the Body at German Hygiene Exhibitions, 1911–1930”
Introducer: Barbara McCloskey

Jessica Orzulak, Duke University
“Transcendent Futurisms: The Photography of Cara Romero”
Introducer: Kristine Stiles

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