2024–2025 Newsletter
Chair's Note
I share this newsletter at a moment when highlighting the accomplishments of our department members and alumni, and coming together—even virtually—as a community, take on deeper significance in the context of the federal government’s attack on higher education and academic freedom. In February, I was delighted to reconnect with many of you at our festive alumni reunion at the College Art Association annual conference in New York. I hope to see you again at our reunion at the College Art Association Annual Conference in 2026 right here in Chicago.
This year, we were pleased to welcome our newest faculty member, Assistant Professor Bihter Esener, a specialist in the visual and material cultures of the medieval Islamic world; she spent her first year with us as a College Fellow last year. We also had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Jessy Bell (Ph.D. 2024) as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Big congratulations to our three Ph.D. candidates who defended their dissertations this year! They will be taking up prestigious postdocs and, in one case, a tenure-track position in art history at Oberlin College. Our impressive Ph.D. students continue to win major fellowships, grants, and prizes, and a number of recent undergraduate alumni are entering graduate programs in art history, including one beginning the Ph.D. program at Harvard University in Fall 2025.
Our year was punctuated by three Warnock lectures highly relevant to today’s concerns: Eyal Weizman (Director of Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London) on the Palestine-Israel conflict, Professor Tsitsi Jaji (Duke University) on music and apartheid; and Anne Lafont (Professor of Art History and Research Director, École des hautes études en sciences sociales) on the early European acquisition of knowledge of African art and culture. LaFont’s Spring quarter lecture ended up being virtual, however, because news of scholars being questioned and turned away at the US border dissuaded her from making the planned trip from Paris. We are heading into an uncertain year, where such instances of loss in the free exchange of ideas may only become more frequent. But we will continue to act our hope, not our fear, and anticipate another productive year of scholarship and exchange within our supportive community of stellar faculty, students, and staff.
Christina Kiaer
Department Chair
The Frances Hooper Professor in the Arts and Humanities