Author: Camara Dia Holloway

I am the Project Manager for the Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné at the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. I earned my PhD at Yale University in the History of Art Department and specialize in twentieth century American art with a particular focus on the history of photography, race and representation, and transatlantic modernist networks. I also serve as a Founding Co-Director of the Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH).

REV: Andrews, Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay

George Reid Andrews. Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. xiii + 241 pp. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-3417-6; $22.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8078-7158-4.

Reviewed by Matthew F. Rarey (Department of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Published on H-AfrArts (August, 2011)
Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti

Uruguay as Race and Nation

As the landscape of cultural studies scholarship increasingly favors transnational, translocal, and global analytical frameworks, George Reid Andrews’s Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay, offers a refreshingly nuanced and successful statement on the continuing importance of nation-specific analyses in the study of blackness and black history. Andrews contrasts Uruguayan social and cultural histories with those of other American nations, particularly in terms of black consciousness and racial (in)equality. At the same time, his careful research and use of primary sources hold the reader firmly inside Uruguay for the entire book. Andrews offers a wide range of case studies that speak to the roles played by political, social, and labor movements; sexuality; music; gender; race and minstrelsy; and carnivalesque performance in the formation of Uruguayan national understandings of blackness, whiteness, and the conception of racial democracy. What emerges is a complex yet highly accessible work, characterized by even-handed conclusions drawn from careful research and the foregrounding of primary sources. Blackness in the White Nation fills a major gap in Spanish- and English-language scholarship in the history of Latin America and the African diaspora, and should be of interest to scholars in fields as diverse as sociology and performance studies. Andrews’s work should also prove useful to advanced undergraduates and graduate students as well as to specialists in social and cultural history, music, dance, and performance, gender and women’s studies, and those interested in the continuing validity of national frameworks for working through African diasporic histories.

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31323

Continue reading “REV: Andrews, Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay”

JOB: Postdoctoral Fellowship In Asian-American Studies @ Wellesley

Wellesley College invites applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Asian-American studies, to begin Fall 2012.  Candidates should have received the Ph.D. within the past three years (ABD considered). Preference will be given to the fields of history, ethnic studies, American Studies, anthropology, and sociology.The Fellow will be in residence at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities the first year and will be expected to take an active role in its intellectual community. In the first year year, the Fellow will teach one course, and in the second year one course each semester, including an introductory course in Asian American Studies.  The Fellow will also be expected to advise students and participate in programming for American Studies.  The fellowship includes support for research and travel.

Please submit only in electronic form the following: a letter of application, a c.v., a graduate school transcript, three letters of recommendation,(The online application will request names/email address so that recommenders or dossier services may submit the letters directly.)a brief statement of teaching experience and research interests, and a writing sample to https://career.wellesley.edu.  Applications must be received by October 15,2011. If circumstances do not allow you to submit materials through our on line application system, please email us at working@wellesley.edu.

Wellesley is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, and we are committed to increasing the diversity of the college community and the curriculum. Candidates who believe they can contribute to that goal are encouraged to apply.

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=42831

JOB: Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies @ York University

J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry

York University

The Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University invites applications for the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry to commence July 1, 2012. J. Richard Shiff QC, an alumnus of Osgoode Hall Law School, was a prominent businessman, teacher and philanthropist. Founded in 1997 by a generous donation from the Shiff family, the Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry was established to support excellence in teaching and research in Jewish Canadian Studies, and to act as a liaison between the academic world and the rest of the community in order to promote greater recognition of the importance of the Jewish experience in the larger Canadian context.

The Faculty seeks a scholar of international stature in an area of Canadian Jewish Studies, who will be responsible for teaching two full-year courses (or their equivalent) and the delivery of annual academic and public lectures. The holder of the Chair will join the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies as well as an appropriate academic department within the Faculty. The Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies is world renowned for excellence in Jewish education, modern Jewish studies, Jewish history, philosophy, sociology, languages, literature and religion. The Shiff Chair is a position at the rank of Full Professor or Associate Professor. Applicants should have demonstrated strengths in research in one of the Centre’s areas of strength, evidenced by a strong record of publication and research. A PhD is required at the time of appointment and preference will be given to applicants with experience supervising graduate students. We seek an individual who will pursue a vigorous research program in an interdisciplinary environment and can demonstrate a commitment to high-quality undergraduate and graduate teaching. The successful candidate must be eligible for immediate appointment to the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Candidates should submit a curriculum vitae and a statement of research interests and selected publications, and arrange to have three letters of reference sent directly, by October 31, 2011, to: Patricia Burke Wood, Associate Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, S-949 Ross Building, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3J 1P3.

York University is an Affirmative Action Employer. The Affirmative Action Program can be found on York’s website at www.yorku.ca/acadjobs or a copy can be obtained by calling the affirmative action office at 416.736.5713. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority.

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=42833

JOB: Assistant Professor, American Studies Program @ Smith College

The American Studies Program at Smith College invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor.  This position will be housed in the American Studies Program; its occupant will contribute two of four yearly courses to the Department of History. Candidates must be well prepared to teach the range of theoretical and methodological questions, both established and emerging, central to American Studies scholarship, and they should be prepared to teach an Early American survey in the History department. We seek a candidate who will not replicate our current strengths in 19th and early 20th century history; we are particularly interested in candidates who work with Native American materials and/or cross-cultural encounters in early America.

Located in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts, Smith is especially well suited for such work. Founded in the early 1960s, the American Studies Program at Smith is one of the oldest and most highly regarded among undergraduate institutions. The College’s membership in the Five College Consortium (with Amherst, Hampshire, and Mount Holyoke Colleges and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst) makes available various modes of interaction and engagement with colleagues and students beyond Smith as well. We especially value intellectual versatility, a commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship, ability to work across periods, and alertness to the transnational and comparative perspectives that have reshaped American Studies work in recent years. Ph.D. in hand and prior teaching experience preferred.

Submit application at http://jobs.smith.edu with letter of application and curriculum vitae. Questions regarding the search should be directed to Professor Michael Thurston, Director of the American Studies Program (mthursto@smith.edu).  Review of applications will begin August 20, 2011. Interviews with semifinalists will be held at the American Studies Association meeting in Baltimore, MD (October 20-22), or, if necessary, by telephone. Smith College is an equal opportunity employer encouraging excellence through diversity.

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=42789

CFP: Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians

ASSOCIATION OF CARIBBEAN HISTORIANS CALL FOR PAPERS

Vea a continuación una traducción al español!
Voir ci-dessous pour une traduction française!

The 44th Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians will be held in Willemstad, Curaçao, from Sunday, May 13, to Friday, May 18, 2012.

Information about how to propose either an individual paper or a panel-along with the forms for each-are posted online at the ACH website http://www.associationofcaribbeanhistorians.org  (look under “Annual Meeting”).  We had a record number of new presenters at the 2011 Puerto Rico conference, a trend we hope will continue.

More information about proposed conference topics, the most recent Annual General Meeting minutes, and calls for the ACH prizes (including the Andres Ramos Mattei-Neville Hall Article Prize and the Gould-Saunders Memorial Endowment Travel Fund Award) appear in the Bulletin, our semi-annual newsletter.  The most recent issue is available at the ACH website under the heading “Bulletin.”

In the meantime, please consider joining us in Curaçao in 2012, and remember that all proposals are due to the ACH Secretary-Treasurer by October 15, 2011.

Sincerely yours,
Michelle Craig McDonald, Secretary-Treasurer
Association of Caribbean Historians

JOB: Graduate Fellowship @ African American Museum in Philadelphia [AAMP]

Graduate Fellowship in Museum Practice

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) is offering a year-long fellowship for current students or recent graduates of graduate programs in African American Studies, History or Humanities funded by The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Graduate Fellowship in Museum Practice Program is geared to provide students with a comprehensive practicum in professional museum work with exposure to Collections Management, Museum Education, Exhibitions, Development, and Visitor Services.

At the conclusion of the year-long fellowship, each graduate fellow will have experienced the following:

  • working in the Collections, Education, Exhibit, and Visitor Services departments of a mid-size museum (AAMP)
  • developing an independent project utilizing the resources of AAMP’s collections
  • performing field assessments at small African American museum and collecting institutions; and,
  • supporting the delivery of four seminars geared to small museums/collecting institutions

The fellowship experience will be enriched through attendance at three major conferences and visits to other museums and cultural institutions.  Successful applicants will work at AAMP from month/year to month/year.

All applicants must:
Be currently enrolled or hold a recent graduate degree in African American studies. Students with degrees other than African American Studies must have a demonstrated interest in African American History or Culture.
Have a demonstrated interest in working in museums or archives. (This interest can be demonstrated through academic coursework, volunteer or work experience, and/or through a personal statement in application essay).
Be able to work 25-30 hours per week.
Be available to travel for conferences and site visits throughout the year.

The annual stipend for this fellowship is $25,000.

Contact: Leslie Guy, Conservator and Curator of Collections, lguy@aampmuseum.org

 

 

JOB: The Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellowship, 2011-2014

The Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellowship, 2011-2014

The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design is pleased to
announce a fellowship funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for an
outstanding junior scholar who wishes to pursue a curatorial career.
The Mellon Fellow will be fully integrated into the Museum’s
Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. The Fellow will have
access to the museum collections and research libraries in the region
and will enjoy all the professional privileges of the museum’s staff.
The Fellow will be expected to participate in strengthening the
Museum’s engagement with the academic curricula at Brown University
and RISD.

Core Activities
Become familiar with the collection’s 24,000 works on paper and
undertake research in area of expertise. Supervise the Museum’s active
study room for prints, drawings, and photographs. Assist with
departmental exhibitions, catalogue new acquisitions, give regular
presentations to classes and gallery talks, answer queries about the
collection, and interact with scholars, students and the public on
matters concerning the collection. Work with the two department
curators to help develop collaboration with faculty at RISD and Brown
University to encourage greater use of the collection in classes and
individual study. In collaboration with a faculty member from Brown
and/or RISD, propose an exhibition and publication to be presented in
the third year. Travel with the department’s curators to explore
potential acquisitions, and to attend scholarly conferences and
relevant exhibitions. Assist with management of day to day
departmental activities as assigned.

Eligibility
Ph.D. (or ABD) or equivalent in Art History or closely related field,
with demonstrated interest in and knowledge of the history of the
graphic arts. Strong communication skills and museum or teaching
experience are essential. Knowledge of a European language is highly
desirable.

Terms
The Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow is a three-year fellowship. The
Fellow receives an annual salary plus benefits and travel and research
funds.

Application and Deadline
For more information about RISD and to apply online, please visit
http://www.risd.edu/jobs.  Review of applications begins immediately,
and will continue until the position is filled. Candidates who submit
their materials by September 1, 2010 will be assured full
consideration.  A complete application will consist of:

• A letter of interest
• A curriculum vitae
• A statement describing the applicant’s area of research and
potential relationship to the museum’s collections
• A copy of a published paper or a writing sample
• Three letters of recommendation, including the names and contact
information for references

RISD is an Equal Opportunity Employer

EXH: “Equal Rites: The Art of Michael D. Harris” @ Hammonds House Museum

“Equal Rites: The Art of Michael D. Harris”

July 10th – September 11th, 2011

This exhibition will explore the work of Michael D. Harris through several phases and themes over the past 15 years.  It also will include duets with other artists; creative collaborations built upon compositions of his creation. The work, in turns, reflects the DuBois idea of double consciousness — that inner conflict we experience as an object of essentialist disdain from without and inner (both personal and social) affirmation — and explorations of social and historical rootedness within African Diasporia cultures.  In the end, the work is autobiographical and expresses Harris’s conceptual and aesthetic tendencies, strengths, concerns and imagination.

Hammonds House Museum
503 Peeples Street SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30310
404.612.0500 Tel  /  404.752.8733 Fax

http://www.hammondshouse.org/index.html

CFP: “The New Native American Art History” @ Int’l Congress of Americanists

“The New Native American Art History”

International Congress of Americanists
Vienna, Austria
July 15-20, 2012

Session Conveners:
Bill Anthes, Pitzer College
Carolyn Kastner, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Kate Morris, Santa Clara University

The symposium session “The New Native American Art History” has been accepted for inclusion at the 54th International Congress of Americanists, to be held in Vienna in July of 2012 (see http://ica2012.univie.ac.at/ for more information on the Congress.)  This session explores the ways in which the field of Native American art history has been transformed since 1992, the “Year of Indigenous Peoples”.  In this watershed year, a number of “Columbian Quincentennial Response Shows” were mounted, bringing Native American art and culture to a new degree of public attention, and placing it in the context of a worldwide discourse on the legacies of European colonialism. Additionally, 1992 saw the publication of Janet Catherine Berlo’s The Early Years of Native American Art History. Compiled and published during a time of rapid change in the larger field of cultural studies, Berlo’s volume was reflective of a growing tendency toward disciplinary critique.

Today the study and display of Native American art has been transformed by the introduction of new theories of visual culture; post-colonial, global, and media studies; and by an emerging interest in indigenous epistemologies.  “The New Native American Art History” seeks to explore in detail some of these developments, incursions, and conflicts, and assess their impact in the development of a “new” history. We are interested in papers that address the theoretical, methodological and institutional changes and challenges of the past two decades.  These might include discussion and analysis of the passage in the United States of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; the founding of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian; the formation of alternative spaces of exhibition such as tribal museums; the emergence of an “aboriginal curatorial perspective”; or consideration of the increasing visibility of Native American contemporary art provided by International Biennales.

Please submit a paper title and a 200-word abstract to  bill_anthes@pitzer.edu.

Deadline for submissions is August 15, 2011.

CFP: Radical Aesthetics and Politics @ Hunter College

“Radical Aesthetics and Politics: Intersections in Music, Art and Critical Social Theory”
9 December 2011
Hunter College, CUNY

http://chreculture.blogspot.com/
In the past few decades, the study of sonic, visual, textual, and other media practices have emerged as productive areas of cultural analysis and critique. Often constitutive of paradoxes and tensions within society, these aesthetic practices have prompted critical engagements with structures of power and knowledge. Researchers and artists have sought to deconstruct particular relationships between aesthetics and power, creating renewed and emergent questions with which current social theory must engage. For instance, how might we think about the “public sphere” in terms of nodes of encounters with the sonic, the visual, and the textual? What forms of political action and sociality emerge from civic engagements with visual, sonic, and textual culture? How are sonic and material landscapes engaged with as embodied practices? What might this imply about the corporeality of the political, the ethical, and the technological? What are the disjunctures and syntheses between artists’ and scholars’ concept-driven productions and the ways in which audiences interpret and construct life-worlds with these productions?

Continue reading “CFP: Radical Aesthetics and Politics @ Hunter College”