After the passing of inspirational professor and longtime department chair Patricia Rose in 2020, her family, former students, and friends initiated a scholarship to honor her memory and support her legacy. The Patricia Rose Fund in Art History was created to ensure that Florida State University students can pursue the subjects to which Dr. Rose joyfully devoted her life.

The 2023–24 recipient of the Patricia Rose Fellowship is Raigen Sumrall, an MA candidate in her second year of graduate studies.

Raigen is a teaching assistant and a member of the Art History Association. She studies Northern Renaissance art with a focus on printed images. Raigen earned a BS in Anthropology from FSU, and hopes to continue to pursue Art History in a doctoral program. Her fellowship assignment involves cataloguing and data cleanup in preparation for incorporating the Rose Library collection into the FSU Libraries database. She writes,

“It is rewarding to have this connection to our founding chair, who is talked about with such affection and esteem by the people who knew her. The basis of our whole in-house library is the collection of  books on Northern Renaissance that she donated on retirement, and those have been vital to my studies. I’m excited that my work here will be instrumental in making the library she established more accessible to our community.”

If you would like to support Patricia Rose’s legacy, make a gift online by clicking the button below, or mail your check payable to “FSU Foundation” with “Patricia Rose Fund” in the memo line, to:
FSU Foundation, 325 W. College Avenue, Tallahassee, FL 32301.

Art History Professor Robert Neuman was interviewed recently by Los Angeles Times Senior Entertainment Writer Meg James for her story on the centennial anniversary of the Walt Disney Company.  The studio’s celebration, called “Disney 100,” received worldwide notice, including the LA Times article, “Disney at 100: Seven Ways Walt’s Company Forever Changed Entertainment,” which appeared in print and online in the October 16, 2023, edition of the Times.  Professor Neuman was quoted multiple times, sharing his thoughts on Walt Disney and the lasting cultural significance of the Disney Company.

The article also cited Neuman’s recent book, From Hollywood to Disneyland: Walt Disney’s Dream Park and the Influence of American Movies (McFarland, 2022).  For the article, Neuman recommended that Ms. James also contact a pair of his colleagues, Drs. Garry Apgar (Trinity College, Hartford) and Heather Holian (University of North Carolina, Greensboro).  All three began their careers in Early Modern art history, later transitioning to Disney Studies.  They, too, are quoted in the story.

Neuman is a member of the Hyperion Historical Alliance, a select group of Disney historians that publishes a scholarly journal, the HHA Annual.  He is also a member of the global organization, “Disney, Culture, and Society,” which publishes the International Journal of Disney Studies. He was one of 80 speakers at the association’s Annual Conference in June 2023. In late September 2023, the group also hosted a book launch, “In Conversation with Robert Neuman,” which helped bring broader attention to From Hollywood to Disneyland.  Neuman is currently writing a monograph on the live-action movies of British historical subjects that Disney made in England in the 1950s.