Award-Winning PhD Papers

Congratulations to three FSU Art History PhD students who won awards for outstanding research papers at conferences this semester: Jennifer Baez, Christopher Timm, and Lesley Wolff.

Jennifer Baez was awarded Best Paper for her presentation at the Sixth Annual Department of Art History Speaker Series hosted by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. The theme of the conference was “Art and Contemplation,” with Dr. Walter S. Melion presiding as keynote speaker. Jennifer’s paper, “Maculas and the Inmaculada: Observations on the painting of the Virgen de la Altagracia and her apparition images,” is a product of her studies as a PhD student in the Visual Cultures of the Americas Art History program.

Christopher Timm was awarded the Graduate Paper Prize, First Place, at the annual Byzantine Studies Conference, held this year in New York City. The Graduate Prize recognizes excellence in graduate presentations on any aspect of Byzantine Studies. Dr. Christina Maranci of Tufts University and President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America, presented the award. Christopher’s paper, “Divinely-Mandated Regime Change: Elijah and ‘Macedonian’ Dynastic Ideology in the Paris Gregory,” is derived from his Ph.D. thesis. In it, he offers an interpretation of the frontispiece of the Paris manuscript of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus.

Lesley Wolff was awarded the Gunther Stamm prize for best paper at the 33rd annual Art History Symposium at Florida State University. Her paper, “Nursing the Nation: Post-revolutionary Mexican Consciousness and Consumption in Tina Modotti’s Baby Nursing,” analyzes Tina Modotti’s photograph Baby Nursing, considering race, eugenics, pulque, and the production of Mexican national consciousness.