MA and PhD Students Producing Knowledge

“Students in the MA and PhD programs in visual studies in the School of Visual Studies have been very actively sharing their research at regional, national, and international scholarly conferences this year. They have examined the representation of gender, sex, and sexuality in medieval Spanish manuscripts, contemporary Chinese photography, and Chappell Roan’s Grammy gown. They have assessed the depiction of monstrousness in sixteenth-century books and twentieth-century comics. They have explored the social significance and functions of material culture, from Chinese snuff bottles to Black matchbook covers in the United States. They have considered the politics of John Heartfield’s East German stage designs, photographs and films of the genocidal civil war in Sri Lanka, and Carolyn Mazloomi’s Social Justice quilts. Their papers have been accepted at the annual meeting of the Canadian Universities Art Association, at graduate conferences on premodern studies at the Newberry Library, and at SECAC’s annual conference. Nine students will be reading papers at the Midwest Art History Society annual conference in March 2026. One will travel to the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, England this coming summer.”

Dr. James van Dyke, Graduate student Director and Professor for School of Visual Studies