Professor Kyle Killian Promoted to Tenure-Track Faculty Position
The Department of Art History is pleased to announce the promotion of Kyle Killian to Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, beginning in Fall 2017. He will continue to teach courses in medieval art and architecture as well as direct the department’s archaeological field school.
Professor Killian’s research investigates the point at which architecture intersects with the physical, intellectual, religious, and artistic landscapes in which the built environment exists. This research follows two complementary trajectories. The first examines medieval monastic landscapes and their long history of change, particularly the monastic landscapes of Picardy and Champagne in northern France. In the course of this research Prof. Killian has served as the field director for archaeological excavations on a range of monastic sites, from urban Augustinian houses to rural Cistercian establishments.
In his published work Prof. Killian integrates archaeological data architectural remains and historical documents, in order to situate monumental fragments in concrete historical contexts. He is currently working on his first book, Architecture and Monastic Landscapes at Medieval Orbais, which is focused on the monastery of Saint-Pierre d’Orbais in northwest Champagne. This monograph examines the interlocking landscapes in which the monastery’s administration made decisions concerning its architecture during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
The second, more recent trajectory of Professor Killian’s research concerns the contemporary place of built environments as objects of scholarly study and embodiments of heritage. This research began with the Department of Art History’s archaeological field school at the Mission San Luis in Tallahassee.
Students participating in the field school conduct archaeological excavation and documentation, placing the better known Spanish mission phase of the San Luis site in the context of its more extensive colonial, slave-era, and early industrial landscapes.
Professor Killian also teaches the Department’s online course ARH 2000: Art, Architecture, and Artistic Vision, which meets the state-wide Liberal Studies designation and the University Humanities Core requirement, thus serving a broad segment of FSU’s undergraduate population. The course introduces non-majors to topics in art and art history through thirteen engaging weekly modules that engage students with short videos, slideshows, and innovative interactive assignments. In 2016, Prof. Killian and then-doctoral candidate Sarah Buck won Awards for Excellence in Online Course Design and in Online Mentoring from the FSU Office of Distance Learning, in recognition of their work in designing and implementing the course.