Art History

female student standing in front of two paintings
Figure: Art History minor Swarangi Potdar, recipient of the DMA-SMU curatorial internship in American Art, at the Dallas Museum of Art
Art History Students at Machu Pichu
Figure: 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.

Meet Our Faculty

Adam Herring Adam Herring

Adam Herring

Department Chair
The Emily Rich Summers Endowed Professor in Art History

Anna Lovatt Anna Lovatt

Anna Lovatt

Associate Professor

 

Stephanie Langin-Hooper Stephanie Langin-Hooper

Stephanie Langin-Hooper

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

Roberto Conduru Roberto Conduru

Roberto Conduru

Endowed Distinguished Professor of Art History

Amy Freund Amy Freund

Amy Freund

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

Randall Griffin Randall Griffin

Randall Griffin

University Distinguished Professor

Elyan Hill ElyanJeanineHill

Elyan Hill

Assistant Professor

Adam Jasienski Adam Jasienski

Adam Jasienski

Director of Graduate Studies
Associate Professor of Art History

Arvin Maghsoudlou Arvin Maghsoudlou

Arvin Maghsoudlou

Teaching Fellow, 2022-2025

Abbey Stockstill Stockstill-Abbey-August-2024

Abbey Stockstill

Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture

Tashima Thomas Daniel Tague

Tashima Thomas

Assistant Professor

Ashley Whitt Ashley Whitt

Ashley Whitt

Director of Visual Resources

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.

Art History News

Student Highlights

Jennifer-Laffick

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.

LauraMartin-Spain-2022-2

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-Christensen

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

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.

Faculty Highlights

Stephanie-Langin-Hooper-June-2024

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.

Adam-Herring-Peru-Excavation-June-2024

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.

Amy-Freund-June-2024

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. Read more here.

Tashima Thomas

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.

Roberto-Conduru-June-2024

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.

Elizabeth-Eager-June-2024

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.

Abbey-Stockstill-June-2024

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.

Anna-Lovatt-June-2024

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.

Randall Griffin

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.

Adam-Jasienski-portraying-theportraits

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.

ElyanJeanineHill

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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