News
The History of Art Department is excited to announce the establishment of the inaugural History of Art Undergraduate Advisory Board, comprised of a selected group of students who will work with…
PhD Candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to the UK this spring to visit collections at the Bodleian Library and present her research at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds…
The History of Art Department is excited to welcome the newest class of PhD students with the beginning of the semester. Joining the department will be Erin Fletcher, A.J. Gianopoulos, Hannah…
The History of Art Department congratulates Schuyler Black-Seitz on successfully defending his dissertation, “Modernism in the Service of Capital: The Art of Charles Sheeler, 1915-1959.” Schuyler…
This summer, Ph. D Candidate Casey Carsel travelled to London, Manchester, Prague, and Warsaw, conducting initial exploratory dissertation research at various archives. Highlights included a visit…
In August 2026, Ph.D. candidate Christy Sher traveled to Cambridge, UK, to attend the Mitsubishi Corporation Summer School in Early Modern Japanese Palaeography at the University of Cambridge,…
In August of 2026, PhD candidate Peter Smyth traveled to London and Paris to conduct research for a dissertation chapter tracing the meaning of the term “cartoon.” In London, Smyth spent two days…
During a recent trip to Düsseldorf and Frankfurt Germany, History of Art PhD candidate Bowie Kim conducted research for her upcoming dissertation on AI-generated art and the visual effects of AI…
PhD Candidate Cole J. Graham recently spent several weeks in Europe, where he first visited the Université Paris-Nanterre to attend a symposium arranged by the Société d’Études Modernistes. There, he…
We are thrilled to announce that PhD Candidate Emilela Thomas-Adams was recently named the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellow (2026-2027) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA…
In June 2026, PhD candidate Dareen Hussein presented new research from her dissertation at two conferences: the International Association of Middle Eastern Studies in Madrid, Spain, and the…
The History of Art Graduate Student Association (HAGS) is pleased to announce its leadership committee for the upcoming year:
President: Christy…
College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Horn has named Shannon Winnubst, Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, as the interim chair of the Department of History of Art for the 2026-2027…
Each year the History of Art Department publishes its annual newsletter, featuring a letter from our department chair, updates on research from our faculty, spotlights on graduate and…
In the second half of May 2025, Prof. Kris Paulsen and PhD Candidate Liz Heise-Glass traveled with 21 undergraduates to Italy for a study abroad course, HISTART 4789.4 Venice "Art, Architecture,…
The Office of Academic Affairs and the Board of Trustees have approved the promotion of Namiko Kunimoto from Associate Professor to Professor in the History of Art Department. Professor Kunimoto's…
From March through May, PhD candidate Peter Smyth served as the third Gallery and Exhibitions Visiting Fellow at Asia Society Hong Kong Center. While there, Peter helped open the exhibition
During the Spring 2026 semester, I recently completed the History of Art department’s new course offering on Art Conservation where students were able to gain in-depth exposure to the field of…
Professor Karl Whittington has been named a Camargo Foundation Fellow for Fall 2026. The Camargo Fellowship is a 10-week residency for artists and writers in Cassis, France. Prof. Whittington will…
Namiko Kunimoto presented her new book, Imperial Animations in Transpacific Contemporary Art, at the University of Chicago on May 13th, 2026. It was held at the Seminary Co-op Book Store…
In May 2026, PhD candidate Christy Sher traveled to McGill University in Canada to consult Japanese medical materials relevant to her dissertation research.
During her visit to the Osler…
On March 5, 2026, Prof. Kris Paulsen and Prof. Jennifer Rhee (VCU) led a seminar for Dartmouth College’s Leslie Center for the Humanities on "AI and Refusal.”
This Leslie Center Seminar on…
The Department would like to congratulate all of the 2025-26 History of Art graduates. The Department also recognizes two undergraduate 2025-26 graduates who have received departmental awards.
In April of 2026, PhD candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany in order to visit collections and historical sites relevant to her dissertation, “Making and Breaking…
Students in Prof. Namiko Kunimoto's History of Art 5822 – Japanese Painting and Prints: Buddhist Art in the Modern World course enjoyed a tour of the exhibition East…
The History of Art Department congratulates Asia Adomanis on successfully defending her dissertation, “On the Borders of Abstraction: Chinese American Artists and the Politics of Hybridity in…
In April 2026, PhD candidate Tony Del Aversano attended the 25th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, in Rochester, New York. There, he presented his paper “Queering the Holy Court: Angel…
Emilela Thomas-Adams, a PhD candidate in the department, presented a paper entitled “’Er want mich in waz er gehaben moht’: Medieval Community and Therapeutic Reuse” at the 42nd Annual Mary L…
The Archives of American Art Journal Spring 2026 issue includes an article from PhD Candidate Asia Adomanis. The essay analyzes the reception of Chinese American painter and…
Asia Adomanis, a doctoral candidate in the department, presented a paper entitled “Monumental Immateriality: Abstractions and Borders in Tseng Yuho’s Western Frontier (1964)” as part of…
Prof. Karl Whittington spoke last week in the Department of Art at Oklahoma State University. He presented research from his recent book, Queer Making, as the keynote for the department’s…
The Department of History of Art is excited to share that Ph.D. Candidate Christy Sher has been named as one of fourteen recipients of the 2026-27 Society of Fellows faculty and Graduate Team…
Christy Sher, PhD candidate, recently visited the Clendening History of Medicine Library and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas to conduct object-based research in support of…
Christy Sher, Ph.D. candidate, presented a paper titled “Seduction, Science, and Statecraft: The Erotics of “Civic Obstetrics” in Utagawa Yoshitora’s Realize One’s Parental Love” at the…
On Friday, March 6, students in History of Art 4030: Art and Conservation travelled to Cleveland, Ohio to visit conservation labs in the area. The group first visited ICA - Art Conservation and…
PhD Student Michiko Kubota traveled to Chicago in mid-February to present at the College Art Association 2026 conference. Participating in the panel on “Gendered Mediations: Materials, Mediums,…
Our own Professor Namiko Kunimoto was recently featured on the UC Press Blog as part of a wider discussion on "How Transpacific Contemporary Art Reveals Imperialism's Role in the Global Rise of…
Professor Aaron Katzeman's essay, "California Is the Eastern Pacific: Toward a Collective Oceanic Realignment," was recently reprinted in Pacific Arts. The essay was originally published in…
The Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and The Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee partnered to host History of Art’s Kris…
Five History of Art Faculty members presented their research at the College Art Association Annual Conference in Chicago on February 18-21, 2026. More information can be found on CAA's website. …
On Feb. 17 2026, the ICMA (International Center of Medieval Art) hosted an online book launch for Prof. Karl Whittington’s new book, Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe…
Namiko Kunimoto had the pleasure of mentoring scholars from Mongolia, Malaysia, and Singapore while visiting Chicago as part of the College Art Association Conference. The mentorship program is…
Students from various courses braved the cold in early February to travel to the Cleveland Musuem of Art. Accompanied by Professor Kristen Adams and Lecturer Hannah Slater, the students explored…
PhD candidate Liz Rae Heise-Glass has written a piece for The Brooklyn Rail highlighting artists working at the intersections of performance art and music in 1980s New York. This article…
Four History of Art faculty members presented on their research in “Current Threads in and against Art History: Power, Colonialism, Genocide,” a department-sponsored event. Aaron Katzeman, Benjamin…
In January, PhD student Tony Del Aversano traveled to Florence, Italy to see the exhibition Fra Angelico, a retrospective on the renowned fifteenth-century Italian artist. There, he saw…
PhD student Michiko Kubota’s book review of Alicia Volk’s In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan has just been published by caa.reviews.
And of course, we highly…
Professor Sam Aranke participated in Getty Research Institute and Royal Academy of Arts two-day public forum Kerry James Marshall: Conversations examining the many influences behind…
At the start of January, PhD candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to the Netherlands and Belgium in order to visit collections related to her dissertation, “Making and Breaking Enclosure: the Movement…
Ujaan Ghosh has completed a decade-long project translating the seventeenth-century Odia Rāmāyaṇa, Baidehiśa Bilāsa. Co-authored with Amrita Chowdhury, this first English…
Namiko Kunimoto has published her second bok, Imperial Animations in Transpacific Contemporary Art. It was published by the University of California Press and received the FirstGen Scholar Award.…
Assistant Professor Aaron Katzeman's co-authored essay with Drew Kahu'āina Broderick, "'Ka Aina No Ka Poe o Hawaii': Kokua Hawaii's Huli Newspaper, 1971–73," was recently translated into Mandarin…
Two History of Art PhD Candidates, Cole Graham and Peter Smyth, have won the prestigious Presidential Fellowship from Ohio State, which provides a year of funding during the 2026-27 Academic Year…
Professor Carlos Rivas spoke to the Ohio State News and shared his thoughts on the controversy surrounding the recent theft of the French Crown Jewels amidst shifting conversations about museums…
Professor Karl Whittington’s new book, “Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe,” has been published by ICMA Books and Penn State University Press as part of the “Viewpoints” series of…
Ph.D. candidate Christy Sher presented a paper titled “Procreative Passions: Visualizing Love, Desire, and Lineage in Edo-Period Japanese Erotica” at the 51st Annual Cleveland Symposium on
In September, PhD candidate Asia Adomanis attended a reception for the publication of the Art Student League’s recent anthology 150 Stories: Lives of the Artists at the League (
This semester, PhD candidate Asia Adomanis traveled to Washington, D.C., and New York to conduct dissertation research on the artist Tseng Yuho. Asia visited the Smithsonian Institute Archives in…
Over autumn break, students in the History of Art Senior Seminar—led by Professor Ujaan Ghosh—traveled to New York City to conduct in-person research on the objects that they are studying for…
Students taking History of Art 2003 (The Art and Visual Culture of East Asia) traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art last weekend with Professor Slater to view the museum's East Asian art…
Dr. David Efurd (OSU PhD, 2008) has been awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship for research in India for 2025-26. Dr. Efurd’s Fulbright-Nehru project examines…
Namiko Kunimoto will travel to Portland to give a talk on gender and postwar Japanese art at the Portland Art Museum. Her talk is part of a symposium on the artist Yoshida Chizuko.
Assistant Professor Aaron Katzeman recently gave the 24th Janet E. Hutchison Lecture at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto in coordination with the exhibition Earthwork, curated by…
Ph.D. candidate Christy Sher presents a paper, “Visualizing the Maternal Body: Pregnancy, Pedagogy, and Civic Instruction in Utagawa Yoshitora’s Fubo no on o shiru zu (Realize One’s…
In June 2025, PhD candidate Dareen Hussein presented a paper entitled "Les deux écrans and the Shaping of Contemporary Arab Women's Film Criticism" at the 2025 European Network of Cinema and Media…
Ph.D. student Christy Sher attended the Kuzushiji workshop at the University of Chicago this past weekend (October 3-4), led by Professor Emeritus Takahashi Akinori of the Graduate School…
Nicole Cromartie, Director of Learning and Engagement at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, CO, visited Professor Aaron Katzeman's HISTART 4030: Museum Studies Seminar - Decolonizing Museums…
Students in Professor Kunimoto's HA 4001, Envisioning the Nation: Modern and Contemporary Art in Asia, enjoyed viewing items in Thompson Library Special Collections. Librarian Dr. Lisa Iacobellis…
Professor Kris Paulsen will be leading a study abroad program to visit Venice, Italy in May 2026. The course will provide class credit for History of Art 4789.4, as well as complete the entire GE…
Professor Namiko Kunimoto's History of Art 4001 Writing seminar learned about the process of making manga from two manga artists from Japan. This visit was sponsored by the Institute for Japanese…
Professor Namiko Kunimoto's History of Art 4001 Writing seminar visited the Columbus of Museum of Art today to practice their visual description skills.
Last Thursday, September 18th, PhD Candidate Cole J. Graham participated in a roundtable made up of comics scholars during Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) is an annual…
PhD student Bowie Bo Gyung Kim published an interview article with artist Muhammad Toukhy in the online art magazine Impulse. In their conversation, Bowie explored the possibilities of online…
History of Art PhD Candidate Mia Kivel traveled to Japan this August to conduct research for her upcoming colloquium and dissertation (tentatively titled Anti-Aphasic Art in Contemporary Ainu…
PhD Student Michiko Kubota traveled to Japan from July through August to conduct research on postwar calligraphy. Supported by the Murnane Travel Scholarship, Start-up Departmental Research Funds,…
PhD Student Christy Sher has been accepted as a Research Fellow for the 2025/26 academic year at the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. This prestigious and…
From June through July this summer, History of Art major Savannah Johnson-Grove completed an internship at Stone Quarry Art Park. Located in Cazenovia, New York, the park highlights a rotating…
Assistant Professor Aaron Katzeman recently published a review of Jeffrey Gibson's the space in which to place me in the online publication Momus. Premiering at the 60th Venice…
The Department of History of Art is delighted to welcome a new faculty member to campus this fall. Dr. Aaron Katzeman has joined the department as Assistant Professor of Global Indigenous Art. Dr…
Professor Ujaan Ghosh published his article, Struggling with Kṛṣṇa: Alternative Imaginations in an Odia Mahābhārata, on the multiplicity of the Mahābhārata tradition in early modern India…
History of Art major Delia Miklowski used her summer break to complete an internship as part of the Department’s course, HISTART 4191. This course, offered each semester, allows students to gain…
Professor Karl Whittington published a short essay, “Touching Saint Sebastian,” in the catalogue of the new show opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met Cloisters) in October 2025…
The Wexner Center for the Arts will celebrate the opening of its fall programming with an opening reception on Friday, August 22. The event will open three new exhibitions including …
As part of the department’s internship course, HA4191, undergraduate Chemistry and History of Art student Monica Harmat has finished a summer internship with ICA Art Conservation. Based in Cleveland,…
The History of Art Graduate Student Association (HAGS) is pleased to announce its leadership committee for the upcoming year:
President:
The department mourns the loss, several months ago, of retired faculty member Dr. Emmanuel Okechukwu “Chuks” Odita. Dr. Odita taught in Ohio State’s Department of History of Art from 1969 to 2012,…
Associate Professor Erica Levin recently published an article in Afterimage entitled, "To assemble is to think…
In June of 2025, PhD student Maika Kagawa Bahr was able to travel to Tokyo to conduct research for her dissertation. Supported by the Graduate Research Small Grants Program, Maika’s travelled to…
The History of Art Department congratulates Karin Flora on successfully defending her dissertation, "Fictive Materiality and the Grisaille Image: Encounters between Art and Matter." Karin was…
Prof. Kris Paulsen published an article on satellite and rover images of Mars and artistic reinterpretations of NASA’s data in the “Sense” issue of LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape…