Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit

SU visiting professor explores art, nature, gender in Renaissance Italy April 6

Tuesday, March 29, 2011, By Rob Enslin
Share
speakers

Mary Garrard, a nationally renowned feminist art historian, will come to Syracuse University in April as the William Fleming Visiting Professor in Art History. In this capacity, Garrard will deliver the 2011 Doris Lecture, “Art Versus Nature: A Renaissance Competition in the Key of Gender,” on Wednesday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium of Huntington Beard Crouse Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public. Also, Garrard will lead two graduate seminars on Friday, April 8 and 15, for which registration is required.

All events are organized and presented by the Department of Art and Music Histories in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences. For more information or to request participation in the seminars, call 315-443-4184.

garrardAt SU, Garrard will draw heavily on her book “Brunelleschi’s Egg: Nature, Art and Gender in Renaissance Italy” (University of California Press, 2010), which explores gender constructs in the histories of art and science. Already, “Brunelleschi’s Egg” has drawn praise from scholars and critics, including CUNY’s James Saslow, who calls the book a “must-read for historians of the early-modern period, with a theme also of urgent contemporary concern,” and Dutch cultural theorist Mieke Bal, who praises it as an “exemplary feat of interdisciplinary study.”

Gary Radke ’73, event coordinator and Dean’s Professor of the Humanities, whose métier is 15th-century Florentine sculpture, is also a fan. “Having something new and valuable to say about the Renaissance is always challenging, especially when we try to address the big questions of how and why Renaissance art took the course it did. By looking at the gendered tension between nature, which was conceived as female, and the work of male artists, Professor Garrard makes us reconsider what was actually going on in art and how it anticipated much later scientific thinking,” says Radke, adding that her book provides novel and convincing readings of the art of Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Giorgione, Titian and others. “I will never look at the dome of Florence Cathedral or Leonardo’s Mona Lisa the same way after reading her work.”

Garrard is professor emerita of art history at American University in Washington, D.C. She has lectured extensively on Renaissance art, feminist art and feminist issues in universities, colleges and museums across the country. Also, she has written and edited numerous books, including the critically acclaimed “Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art” (Princeton University Press, 1989), and has published scholarly articles on Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, Jacopo Sansovino, Artemisia Gentileschi, Sofonisba Anguissola and others.

With AU colleague Norma Broude, Garrard has edited and contributed to the landmark texts “Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany” (Harper and Row, 1982), “The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History” (Harper Collins, 1992) and “Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art History After Postmodernism” (University of California Press, 2005). Both professors also served as co-curators of the 2007 exhibition “Claiming Space: Some American Feminist Originators.”

A leader of the feminist movement in art professions, Garrard has served as president of the Women’s Caucus for Art, as a board member of the College Art Association and as chair of AU’s art department. She is the recipient of many honors and awards, including lifetime achievement awards from the Women’s Caucus for Art (2005) and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (2011).

The William Fleming Visiting Professorship was established in 1986 to bring to campus established scholars of international reputation in cultural history, with an orientation toward the visual arts or music and whose published work has been innovative, provocative and broad based. The professorship is supported with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and by William Fleming, founding chair and professor of SU’s Department of Fine Arts (now Department of Art and Music Histories).

The Doris Lecture is made possible by donors who wish to remain anonymous.

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • 2023-24 Parking Rates Announced
    Friday, May 26, 2023, By News Staff
  • Lutheran Chaplain Announces Retirement
    Thursday, May 25, 2023, By Dara Harper
  • SyracuseCoE Awards $180,000 for 9 Faculty Fellow Projects Supporting Research and Innovation
    Thursday, May 25, 2023, By News Staff
  • From Generation to Generation: Doing Well by Doing Good
    Thursday, May 25, 2023, By Eileen Korey
  • Office of Veteran and Military Affairs Celebrates Graduating Military-Connected Students
    Wednesday, May 24, 2023, By Charlie Poag

More In Uncategorized

Syracuse Views Spring 2023

We want to know how you experience Syracuse University. Take a photo and share it with us. We select photos from a variety of sources. Submit photos of your University experience using #SyracuseU on social media, fill out a submission…

Awards of Excellence Honoree: Maxwell has Been ‘a Guiding Hand’ in Public Service Career

Standing before an audience of fellow Maxwell School alumni gathered in Washington, D.C., for the second annual Maxwell Awards of Excellence, CNN anchor Boris Sanchez ’09 shared the motivation behind his work as a journalist. Sanchez emigrated from Cuba as…

NASA Honoring Those Who Were Aboard Space Shuttle Columbia And Other Late Astronauts

Sean O’Keefe, University Professor in the Maxwell School, was interviewed for the USA Today article “Twenty years later, loss of space shuttle Columbia still teaches us lessons.” The article emphasizes how NASA’s Memorial Grove is used to honor late astronauts,…

NFL, Eagles and Chiefs All Set To Win The Economics Game In Super Bowl LVII

Rodney Paul, director and professor of sport analytics in the Falk School, was quoted in the Washington Examiner story “The economics of the Super Bowl: Hosting, gambling, ads, and more.” The article talks in-depth about all of the economics that…

CEOs Requiring In Person Work Is Hurting Diversity

Arlene Kanter, director of the Disability and Policy Program and professor in the College of Law, was interviewed for the Business Insider article “Some CEOs are pushing workers to return to the office, but it could come with a cost:…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.