History of Art, Archaeology, and Visual Studies

Field Description

Students choose a major concentration and two minor ones, one (in rare cases, both) of which may be in another field. The format of examinations in the major and minor concentrations is determined in consultation with each member of the Special Committee. Individual exams are followed by an oral exam with all members of the committee.

Research and study opportunities:
The Fine Arts Library in Sibley Hall has extensive holdings in art and architectural history; Olin and Kroch Libraries have excellent resources in history, literature, and other related fields. Particularly notable are the special collections on Dante, Petrarch, witchcraft, the history of science, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is particularly strong in modern and Asian art. It also has a study collection in other fields, including a rich print collection. A study gallery and classroom in the museum make it a regular part of instruction.

The Department of History of Art has a collection of over 300,000 slides and a study collection of photographs of works of art.

The field sponsors a colloquium including graduate students in the field. Students are also encouraged to participate in one of many interdisciplinary groups in theory, medieval studies, the Renaissance colloquium, the Southeast Asia program, and others.

Students interested in the history of architecture and urban development may want to consider the Field of Architecture.

Contact Information

Website: https://arthistory.cornell.edu/
Email: art_history@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-9861 or 607 255-4905

GM08 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Data and Statistics

• Doctoral Program Statistics

Field Manual

• Manual

Subject and Degrees

History of Art and Archaeology

• History of Art and Archaeology (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Concentrations by Subject

History of Art and Archaeology

• 19th century art
• African, African American, and African Diaspora
• American art
• ancient art and archaeology
• Asian American art
• baroque art
• comparative modernities
• contemporary art
• digital art
• East Asian art
• history of photography
• Islamic art
• Latin American art
• medieval art
• modern art
• Native American and Indigenous studies
• Renaissance art
• South Asian art
• Southeast Asian art
• theory and criticism
• visual studies

Faculty

Annetta Alexandridis

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: ancient art and archaeology; history of photography; Islamic art
• Research Interests: classical art and archaeology; Greek myths and iconography; archaeology of photography; gender studies; animal and human bodies in Greek culture

Benjamin William Anderson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: ancient art and archaeology; Islamic art; medieval art
• Research Interests: Byzantine art, architecture, and visual culture; architecture and archaeology of late antique and medieval Anatolia.

Ananda Irvena Cohen-Aponte

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: ancient art and archaeology; Latin American art; Native American and Indigenous studies; visual studies
• Research Interests: Pre-Columbian and colonial Latin American art, the Andes, cross-cultural exchange, visual cultures of colonialism, identity, material culture studies, art and social change, indigeneity, muralism.

Muhammad Iftikhar Dadi

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: Asian American art; comparative modernities; contemporary art; history of photography; Islamic art; modern art; South Asian art; theory and criticism; visual studies
• Research Interests: modern art; theory and criticism; history of photography; globalization; comparative modernities; critical and post-colonial theory; modernism; South Asian and Islamic art

Maria Fernandez

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: comparative modernities; contemporary art; digital art; Latin American art; Native American and Indigenous studies; theory and criticism; visual studies
• Research Interests: new media art; cybernetics; feminist art; critical theory; historiography; colonial, modern and contemporary Latin American art and architecture

Salah Hassan

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: African, African American, and African Diaspora; modern art; theory and criticism
• Research Interests: African and African American art

Ana Cristina Howie

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: baroque art; Renaissance art
• Research Interests: cultures of dressing, European imperialism, colonialism, and cosmopolitanism, artisanal practices of making, object materialities, global networks of artistic exchange, and early modern race-making. Ana Howie’s current research investigates the relationships between elite women, global material culture, and portraiture in seventeenth-century Genoa, with a focus on the oeuvres of Flemish painters Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck

D Medina Lasansky

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: ancient art and archaeology; medieval art; Renaissance art
• Research Interests: Northern Mediterranean architecture and urbanism; nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture; relationship between between popular culture and architecture

Nancy P. Lin

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: contemporary art; East Asian art
• Research Interests: Nancy Lin specializes in modern and contemporary Chinese art and architecture with a particular interest in the relationship between art and urbanism.

Sturt W. Manning

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: ancient art and archaeology
• Research Interests: Aegean, Cypriot and East Mediterranean prehistory; archaeological science; classical archaeology and art; dendrochronology; dendroclimatology; dendrochemistry and climate-change science; radiocarbon dating

Kaja Maria McGowan

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: Asian American art; comparative modernities; contemporary art; East Asian art; history of photography; Islamic art; modern art; Native American and Indigenous studies; South Asian art; Southeast Asian art; theory and criticism; visual studies
• Research Interests: Southeast Asian art

Andrew Moisey

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: history of photography; modern art; theory and criticism; visual studies

An-Yi Pan

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: Asian American art; contemporary art; East Asian art; modern art; visual studies
• Research Interests: East Asian Buddhist art; Chinese art; Tang and post-Tang

Verity J. Platt

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: ancient art and archaeology
• Research Interests: Greek and Roman Art; aesthetics of the sacred in antiquity; ancient theories of representation; Roman wall painting; funerary art

Kelly Presutti

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: modern art
• Research Interests: Modern Art

Jolene K. Rickard

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: African, African American, and African Diaspora; comparative modernities; contemporary art; digital art; history of photography; Latin American art; Native American and Indigenous studies; theory and criticism; visual studies
• Research Interests: 20th-century contemporary art; native art of the Americas; 19th-century Iroquois indigenous studies

Cynthia Robinson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: Islamic art; Latin American art
• Research Interests: Medieval and Islamic art

Shirley R Samuels

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: 19th century art; African, African American, and African Diaspora; Asian American art; comparative modernities; contemporary art; history of photography; Native American and Indigenous studies; theory and criticism; visual studies
• Research Interests: American art; American studies; women

Mary Norman Woods

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History of Art and Archaeology: 19th century art; comparative modernities; history of photography; South Asian art; visual studies
• Research Interests: nineteenth-century European and American architecture and urbanism