Dear History of Art Community: current and former students, faculty, friends, and supporters. Welcome to the Fall 2025 edition of our annual newsletter. It’s been another busy year in the department, and I’m pleased to share some of the highlights with you. This is the last of my five years as chair of the department; in June 2026, I’ll be returning to the faculty and am looking forward to getting back to research and teaching full time. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past five years with everyone’s collaboration and support, and I look forward to seeing the department continue to grow and change.
I want to start the newsletter by welcoming our newest faculty member to the department. Dr. Aaron Katzeman began his position as Assistant Professor in August 2025, moving across the country from his home in California. We are delighted to have his research and teaching expertise on our faculty. He is a specialist in modern/contemporary indigenous and anti-colonial art, with particular research interests in land-based art, film, and resistance movements. This year he has jumped right into teaching great courses on “Decolonizing Museums,” “Art and Hawaiian Sovereignty,” and “Exhibition Histories.” Welcome, Aaron!
Our faculty continued their research across the country and the world, traveling to research sites, attending conferences, giving invited talks, winning awards, and curating exhibitions. To name just a few highlights, Prof. Sampada Aranke curated a show at the Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, “Dewey Crumpler: Life Studies,” which was accompanied by a catalogue that included contributions by Prof. Aranke and also Prof. Benjamin Jones. Prof. Jody Patterson won the 2025 Ratner Award for Distinguished Teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences, which will help fund a teaching project to do research with students on 20th century public art projects across Ohio. Prof. Namiko Kunimoto gave invited talks at the Portland Museum of Art and the Miami Institute of Contemporary Art. And Prof. Kris Pauslen was a faculty fellow at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Culture and Technology. These are just a few of the many faculty highlights for the year; you can read more in the “Faculty Notes” section.
I also want to congratulate our PhD students who finished their degrees this year: Karin Flora, Keyu Yan, and Allie Mickle. We are so proud of your accomplishments and wish you all the best!
We have also welcomed a number of inspiring guests to our department this year. To name just a few, last spring, Julia Bryan-Wilson (Columbia University) delivered our annual Ludden Lecture, speaking about her recent exhibition in Sao Paolo, “Queer Histories.” This fall, Roland Betancourt delivered the Patron’s Circle Lecture, speaking about Byzantium in popular culture. Leah Triplett delivered the 2025 curatorial lecture at the Wexner Center for the Arts, speaking on curating in times of crisis. And Ellen Tani delivered a Recent PhD lecture in September 2025.
Prof. Christina Wei-Szu Burke Mathison also organized a fantastic international symposium on Taiwanese Art in March 2025. She brought scholars from Taiwan and from across the US for a full day of research presentations that explored the current state of the field of Taiwanese Art History. It was a great, and very well attended event!
We continue to work on study abroad courses that bring our students across the world. In 2024, Prof. Erica Levin took students to Berlin for a class on film and art; in 2025 I took students to Rome and Florence for a class on medieval art; and in 2026 Prof. Paulsen will be taking students to Venice for a new study abroad course on “Venice: Past/Present/Future.”
Like last year, 2025 brought challenges for many in our department. We lost two more emeritus faculty members, Anne Morganstern and Chuks Odita, both of whom will be greatly missed by current and past members of our community. It has been a challenge to stay the course during a turbulent political year in Ohio and across the world, but I am proud of the resilience and camaraderie of our students and faculty in navigating it all.
As always, I love to hear from you, so stop by Pomerene Hall, drop me an email, or send me a letter. Hope to see you in 2026.
Karl Whittington
Professor and Department Chair