BY: ANNA PRENTISS , JAMIE RAGER

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Florida State University’s Department of Art History will celebrate 40 years of symposia featuring graduate students’ original research within all areas of study, from art and architectural history to visual and material culture.

The 40th Annual Art History Graduate Student Symposium will take place from 1:30-6 p.m. Friday, March 1, and from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday, March 2, in the William Johnston Building, room 2005. The event is part of the College of Fine Arts anniversary celebration.

“For four decades, the Department of Art History has fostered the future of the discipline by hosting this student-focused conference and bringing internationally acclaimed scholars to our campus as keynote speakers,” said James Frazier, dean of the College of Fine Arts. “We look forward to many more years of celebrating and supporting these emerging scholars.”

Inaugurated in 1981, the annual event brings together students, professors and members of the community to share ideas and expertise. Students from around the country are invited to present their research in 20-minute talks followed by a Q&A with the audience, with opportunities for further discussion in social gatherings throughout the event.

Since 2020, the event has been organized by the Graduate Student Symposium Committee, a rotating elected group of art history master’s and doctoral students, three of whom serve as session chairs.

“The student committee has really taken the lead in planning the symposium,” said Jean Hudson, assistant chair of the Department of Art History. “This is a completely student-centered conference. We’re proud of the long tradition and the way the event has evolved and especially proud of our students who work so hard to bring it together.”

As an aspiring professional in art history, doctoral student Emma Huston emphasized the importance of the themes and subjects covered in the symposium.

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“Research and innovation in terms of art history is overlooked sometimes,” Huston said. “As art historians, we study the ways in which humanity understands their existence through material and visual culture. The more we can understand each other’s existence, the more we can work together for a better future.”

This year’s keynote speaker is Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University. His presentation “Blackbeats: Cubism Reimagined” will be held at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 1 in the William Johnston Building, room 2005.

Powell is a leading scholar in African American art and culture. His research focuses on American art, the arts of the African diaspora and contemporary visual studies. He was recently awarded the National Humanities Center Spring 2024 Fellowship for his presentation in the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts series “Colorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect.”

“When students are exposed to great scholars, it opens their eyes to the greater network of universities and academics that they’re a part of,” Huston said. “Someone like Dr. Powell, who addresses such pertinent themes, is an excellent connection for them.”

Three paper sessions — Community Spaces in Focus, Meaning and Materiality, and Navigating Identity — will take place on Friday and Saturday, with a discussion after each speaker. Papers presented will be considered for inclusion in Athanor, the department’s internationally distributed, peer-reviewed journal.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit arthistory.com/sympo.

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The Art History Graduate Symposium is generously sponsored by the Dean of the College of Fine Arts and by a grant from the Congress of Graduate Students. 

BY: ANNA PRENTISS , JAMIE RAGER

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A Florida State University art history professor and a group of graduate students are working to uncover and preserve the architectural traditions of Indigenous and African diasporic communities in the Americas through a series of conferences and workshops.

Over the past year, FSU Associate Professor of Caribbean art and architectural history Paul Niell collaborated with Stella Nair, associate professor of Indigenous Arts of the Americas at the University of California, Los Angeles, Indigenous knowledge keepers and graduate students at both universities to organize a three-part conference series, “Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds.”

Historically, thatch work architecture actively made by Indigenous and African diasporic communities in the Americas has been excluded from scholarly discussions and considered “primitive” due to construction methods. Scholarship has focused on monumental stone buildings, such as those at Machu Picchu or Tikal, even though the domestic thatched house as an architectural form and social practice has persisted far longer than stone temples or palaces.

“This conference series brings to light this understudied area of architectural history at precisely a moment when we need to most think about the material sustainability of our daily lives within the context of global environmental degradation, inequity and climate change,” said Michael Carrasco, associate dean for academic affairs and research and associate professor of Art History and Cultural Heritage Studies.

The conference series brought together Indigenous knowledge keepers and scholars in architectural history, archaeobotany, cultural anthropology, archaeology, heritage studies and art history to discuss complex ecologies in the Indigenous Caribbean and South American worlds; “Ephemeral Architecture,” highlighting American traditions; and “Imperialism,” which considered the impact of imperial transformations in the Caribbean and South America.

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“We learned so many new things about these neglected architectural traditions of the Americas this year,” Niell said. “The program underscored the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to the topic. Our conferences and workshops also exposed the vital importance of considering the perspectives of Indigenous knowledge keepers and other community members when we approach and think about this kind of architecture.”

Among the conference speakers were Everett Osceola, Seminole Tribe of Florida Cultural Ambassador and a member of the Bird Clan, who was interviewed by Shannon Speed, tribal citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, director of the American Indian Studies Center and professor of Gender Studies and Anthropology at UCLA. Osceola discussed the making and use of traditional Seminole dwellings known as “chickees,” a structure made of cypress logs with palmetto thatched roofs, and their evolution through time.

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“During these conferences, we built a community around this topic, connecting knowledge keepers previously unknown to one another who had the opportunity to exchange views about their respective traditions,” Niell said. “Our approach also challenged academics to consider local knowledge, exposing disciplinary linkages.”

Lorenzo Pericolo, Vincent V. and Agatha Thursby Professor and chair of the Department of Art History said the department is incredibly proud of Niell and his students’ work on this project.

“The Forgotten Canopy is making strides toward addressing critical blind spots in our field when it comes to the study of architecture, as well as preserving valuable knowledge for future generations,” he said.

Each of the Forgotten Canopy conferences also featured a critical community-based workshop funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art and sponsored in partnership with the American Indian Studies Center of UCLA, directed by Speed.

For more information, visit TheForgottenCanopy.create.fsu.edu.