Art History

female student standing in front of two paintings

Art History minor Swarangi Potdar, recipient of the DMA-SMU curatorial internship in American Art, at the Dallas Museum of Art

Art History majors and minors (from left: Jackson Covert, Vimal Kotecha, Michael Reese, and Reyna Reyes) in Dr. Herring’s Honors course on Inca art and architecture, at the site of Machu Picchu, Peru.

Expansive range of classes taught by tenure-track research faculty, personalized advising and mentorship, museum internships and research travel opportunities, and pre-professional career training for your future in the art world

Art History trains our students to think critically and engage aesthetically with a world saturated by images. Art History majors are prepared for graduate school or a career in the arts through a wide breadth of courses, spanning from ancient Mesopotamia to Medieval maps to Impressionist painting to Afro-Futurism. Two tracks in the undergraduate major - Museum Studies and History of Architecture - provide specialized pre-career training and exclusive internship opportunities. Our graduate students (MA and PhD) receive personalized mentorship, rigorous training in cutting-edge theory, and substantial financial support from SMU. Our students and alumni have been widely successful in securing prestigious fellowships, teaching awards, internships, and job placements in museums, galleries, commercial art ventures, tenure-track professorships, and other careers after graduation.

Art History

Undergraduate Majors/Minors	B.A. in Art History B.A. in Art History, Museum Studies Specialization B.A. in Art History, History of Architecture Specialization Minor in Art History
Graduate Majors/Minors	M.A. in Art History Ph.D. in Art History

Meet Our Faculty

Adam Herring

Department Chair
The Emily Rich Summers Endowed Professor in Art History

Anna Lovatt

Associate Professor

Stephanie Langin-Hooper

Director of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Professor and Karl Kilinski II Endowed Chair of Hellenic Visual Culture

Roberto Conduru

Endowed Distinguished Professor of Art History

Elizabeth Bacon Eager

Assistant Professor

Amy Freund

Associate Professor and The Kleinheinz Family Endowment for the Arts and Education Endowed Chair in Art History

Randall Griffin

University Distinguished Professor

Rebecca Hewitt

Coordinator

Elyan Hill

Assistant Professor

Adam Jasienski

Director of Graduate Studies
Associate Professor of Art History

Arvin Maghsoudlou

Teaching Fellow, 2022-2025

Abbey Stockstill

Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture

Tashima Thomas

Assistant Professor

Ashley Whitt

Director of Visual Resources

View All Faculty

news

Dr. Dani Ezor appointed Visiting Assistant Professor at Kenyon College
                                Alumni
                                Dr. Dani Ezor has been appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Kenyon College for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years. At Kenyon, Ezor will be teaching courses on colonial Latin America and the Caribbean, race and gender 18th-century visual and material culture, and ecology and art in the early modern period, among other potential topics.
                            

Figure 1: Meadows Admission Ambassadors give prospective students a glimpse into the vibrant community at SMU Meadows.

Campus Visitors Receive Warm Welcome From Meadows’ Student Ambassadors

Students
Meadows Admission Ambassadors are often the first face many people see upon visiting the school and work hard to make a positive impact on visitors’ campus experiences.

September 13, 2024
Figure 2: Patricia Manzano Rodríguez has been appointed curator for the Meadows Museum; photo by Guy Rogers III.

Patricia Manzano Rodríguez Appointed Curator for Meadows Museum

Campus
The Meadows Museum has announced the appointment of Dr. Patricia Manzano Rodríguez, a Mellon Curatorial Fellow, to the position of curator starting September 1.

July 22, 2024
Figure 3: Mentorship activities include offering a thirty-minute virtual coffee session to a student, reviewing a resume, or speaking to a Meadows class as a guest lecturer.

Meadows Mentor Program Provides Students with Professional Advice and Guidance

Alumni
The new mentorship program created by the Office of Alumni and Career Success pairs current students with alumni and other volunteers who are willing to share career advice.

May 22, 2024
Figure 4: Art history alum Elise Huff (B.A. '20) worked in commercial galleries before founding her own art advisory, Next Up Collectors, focusing on young artists.

Alumni Spotlight: Elise Huff

Alumni
Art history alum Elise Huff (B.A. '20) explains how an elective art history class at Meadows ignited her passion for the arts and changed the trajectory of her career.

January 22, 2024

Jennifer Laffick, Ph.D. Candidate. Jennifer Laffick has just returned from a month-long research trip in Brazil where she conducted research for her dissertation, “Neoclassicism's Atlantic Currents: French Painting and Power in the Early Nineteenth Century.” Working at institutions in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília, Laffick investigated how French artists adapted the neoclassical aesthetic to Brazilian patrons' tastes during the 1810s and 1820s. While in Rio, she also gave a presentation about the international dimensions of her research at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.

Laura Martin, Ph.D. Student. Thanks to the generous support of Meadows School of the Arts and the Custard Institute for Spanish Art, Laura Martin is thrilled to announce that she will be concluding her first year in the Ph.D. program with a research trip to Spain. During her time in Spain, she will delve into archives, museums, and various cultural institutions, immersing herself in Spanish art and history. These experiences will undoubtedly shape and inform Martin’s dissertation project, al lowing her to make meaningful contributions to the academic discourse of the art history field. She is incredibly grateful for this opportunity and looks forward to sharing her discoveries and insights with her colleagues upon return.

Jean Marie Christensen, Ph.D. Candidate. During the 2023-24 academic year, doctoral candidate Jean Marie Christensen pursued dissertation research through the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies/Clark Memorial Library Fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles. She presented portions of her dissertation at various conferences including the Annual Medieval and Renaissance Symposium at Saint Louis University and the Southeastern Renaissance Conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Erin Wilson, Ph.D. Student. Wilson’s scholarly interests revolve around paintings – particularly portraiture – and objet d'art produced in, or concerning, France in the long 18th century. As such, she will be going to Paris the first week of June to revisit favorite works, gain new experiences, and make connections derived from the knowledge she acquired over these past two semesters.

Associate Professor Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Ph.D. In February 2024, Dr. Langin-Hooper's journal article, "Making Wonder in Miniature: A New Approach to Theorizing the Affective Properties and Social Consequences of Small-Scale Artworks from Hellenistic Babylonia," was published in the print version of Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Volume 34.1: 27-42.

Professor Adam Herring continued his participation in the Proyecto Cuarto de Rescate de Cajamarca, a community-based program of research and excavation that seeks to document and conserve imperial Inca buildings in the town center of Cajamarca, Peru.

Professor Amy Freund recently published an article in the journal French History. The essay, co-written with Dr. Tom Stammers at the University of Durham in the UK, proposes a new interpretation of one of the Dallas Museum of Art's biggest and strangest portraits, which was painted at the height of the French Revolution. .

Assistant Professor Tashima Thomas received a SMU Collaborative Research Grant from the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute for her proposal, "Futuristic Arts and Letters Project," in collaboration with Sanderia Faye Smith, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of English.

Professor Roberto Conduru, Ph.D. On Saturday, May 4, the exhibition "J. Cunha: Corpo Tropical" (J. Cunha: Tropical Body) opened at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, for the catalog of which Dr. Conduru wrote a brief essay focusing on two works – "Codices" (Codex) and "História de Ogum" (Ogun stories) – and discussing how J. Cunha shares his vision of the history of the African diaspora in Brazil.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Eager, PhD. In March 2024, The Art Bulletin published Dr. Eager’s article "Sewn in Place: Gender, Materiality, and Map-Making in the Early National United States." The article focuses on a set of five embroidered maps of the US capital in Washington, D.C., produced by a group of young women in Alexandria, VA in the early nineteenth-century.

Associate Professor Abbey Stockstill, Ph.D. In the spring of 2024, Dr. Stockstill was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. Her first book, Marrakesh and the Mountains: Landscape, Urban Planning, and Identity in the Medieval Maghrib, appeared with Penn State University Press in their "Buildings, Landscapes, and Societies" series in May.

Associate Professor Anna Lovatt, Ph.D. This summer, Dr. Lovatt has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend to write the third chapter of her book Picturing Kinship: Relatedness in Contemporary Art.

Professor Randall Griffin, PhD. President Turner and Provost Loboa honored SMU's 2024 Faculty Career Achievement Award Honoree, Dr. Randall Griffin, University Distinguished Professor of Art History in the Meadows School of the Arts, in a prestigious academic ceremony on April 14, 2024.

Associate Professor Adam Jasienski is happy to report that his book, Praying to Portraits: Audience, Identity, and the Inquisition (published by Penn State in May of 2023), was awarded the 2024 Eleanor Tufts Award from the Society for Iberian Global Art.

Assistant Professor Elyan Jeanine Hill, Ph.D. has received a West African Research Association postdoctoral fellowship to complete research in Ghana and Togo for her book manuscript. She also recently took a short research trip to Washington D.C. to see the exhibition From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya with Ayana V. Jackson.

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Art History

Expansive range of classes taught by tenure-track research faculty, personalized advising and mentorship, museum internships and research travel opportunities, and pre-professional career training for your future in the art world

Art History

Meet Our Faculty

Adam Herring

Anna Lovatt

Stephanie Langin-Hooper

Roberto Conduru

Elizabeth Bacon Eager

Amy Freund

Randall Griffin

Rebecca Hewitt

Elyan Hill

Adam Jasienski

Arvin Maghsoudlou

Abbey Stockstill

Tashima Thomas

Ashley Whitt

news

Dr. Dani Ezor appointed Visiting Assistant Professor at Kenyon College

Art History News

Campus Visitors Receive Warm Welcome From Meadows’ Student Ambassadors

Patricia Manzano Rodríguez Appointed Curator for Meadows Museum

Meadows Mentor Program Provides Students with Professional Advice and Guidance

Alumni Spotlight: Elise Huff

Student Highlights

Faculty Highlights

Upcoming Art History Events

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