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 Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art are pleased to announce the 55th annual session of the Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art. This year’s symposium will be held Friday and Saturday, February 28-March 1, 2025. Student speakers are invited from Duke University, Emory University, Penn State University, University of Delaware, University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

The symposium will begin on Friday evening, February 28th, with tea at 5:00pm in the Parren J. Mitchell Arts & Sociology Building Atrium, followed by a 6:00pm keynote in ASY2203. E. Carmen Ramos will deliver this year’s George Levitine Lecture hosted by the University of Maryland. Her lecture is titled "Freddy Rodríguez: The Geometry of Freedom." E. Carmen Ramos is chief curatorial and conservation officer at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. She leads the curatorial, conservation, and registrar teams as they serve the nation and beyond through collections development, ground-breaking scholarship, art conservation, and scientific research. Ramos is curating a major exhibition on Dominican-born artist Freddy Rodríguez (1945-2022), opening at the National Gallery in 2027.

Ramos previously served as the acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), where she helped build one of the most significant collections of Latinx art at a museum of U.S. art. She organized award-winning exhibitions including ¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now (2020), Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea (2023), Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art (2013) and Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography (2017). In addition to her numerous catalogues, her scholarship appears in American Art, and in books like Picturing Cuba: Art, Culture and Identity on the Island and The Image of the Black in Latin American and Caribbean Art.

The Levitine Lecture will be followed by dinner at Mulligan's Grill and Pub at 7:30pm. If you wish to attend the dinner, please make your dinner reservation here by Thursday, February 13th for the Friday, February 28th dinner. The cost is $50.00 for faculty, staff, and guests, and $27.00 for Graduate students. Checks may be made out to the University of Maryland and delivered to: Dana Persaud, Department of Art History & Archaeology, 1211B Parren J. Mitchell Art-Sociology Building, 3834 Campus Drive, College Park, MD 20742

On Saturday, March 1st, graduate students will deliver their papers during morning and afternoon sessions at the National Gallery of Art, where the symposium will close with a reception in the West Building Garden Café.

Here is a preliminary list of speakers and their talks (please note: this list remains to be ordered as to day of presentation)

Brandee Newkirk
Duke University
Under Advisement: New Negro Women and the Black Beauty Bodily Aesthetic
Introduction: Jasmine Nichole Cobb

Raquel Belden
Emory University
Fashioning Modernist Painting: Representations of Hand Fans in Marie Laurencin's Art
Introduction: Todd Cronan

Amy Orner
Pennsylvania State University
Visions of Empire in Edinburgh’s New Town
Introduction: Robin Thomas

Megan Baker
University of Delaware
Kinship: Pastel, Whiteness, and the Aesthetic Work of Colonial Authority
Introduction: Jennifer Van Horn

Erin Wrightson
University of Pennsylvania
The Human Forest: Sixteenth-Century Brazilwood Extraction and Contemporary Legacies
Introduction: Sarah M. Guerin

Hossein Nakhaei
University of Pittsburgh
A Composite of Fragments: Removal, Displacement, and Illusion in Museum Displays of Persian Luster Tiles
Introduction: Sahar Hosseini

Drew Lynch
Virginia Commonwealth University
The Diasporic Archive and the Reimagining of Memory in the Art of Faith Ringgold and Simone Leigh
Introduction: Tobias Wofford

Haojian Cheng
University of Maryland
Panorama of Mount Lu and Zhang Daqian’s Taiwanese Period (1976-1983)
Introduction: Jason Kuo

MAS 2024: Fifty-Fourth Annual Sessions

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.

54th Annual Sessions
Saturday, March 2, 2024
10:15 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
West Building Lecture Hall
National Gallery of Art

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

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