Teaching Statement
As a teacher of undergraduates, I introduce Art History as a study of cultural production that focuses especially on the visual and spatial arts, the meanings they generate within specific reception contexts, and how these meanings are inflected by issues of patronage, political, and spiritual life. I integrate the study of concrete works with the methodologies and critical intellectual traditions of Art History, which open up new ways of experiencing artworks, and constitute a kind of toolkit for critically navigating contemporary culture. I have experience teaching introductory courses in Art History as well as more advanced undergraduate course, including a seminar on the art and architecture of Berlin and a survey of Modern Architecture. For syllabi and materials from these courses, click here.
Course Development
Courses do not unfold in a vacuum, but within specific departments and for diverse populations of students. Tools for assessing learning styles, levels, and academic backgrounds provide an important starting point to an instructor that can help clarify and identify course objectives without losing academic consistency and rigor. Especially at the introductory level, the structure of a course needs to take into consideration how the course contributes to the intellectual training offered within a department - introductory courses can serve a variety of functions, depending on the departmental context. I had the opportunity to think about this concretely when I taught a course on Modern Architecture in 2006, which turned out to be comprised mainly of engineering students taking the course for a certificate in architecture. These bright and ambitious students had little experience with humanities courses and I quickly realized that I had little experience teaching to students with their academic backgrounds. Both the students and I had to reconsider our expectations and adjust them accordingly. This was a very interesting, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately very rewarding process. I came away with a strong sense of how important is it to consider the individuals within a class as part of the course structure.
Teaching Art History
As graduate students, my colleagues and I were intrigued by the ways that the discipline of Art History is created in the classroom. In 2000-2001, I co-organized a yearlong series of workshops on teaching the art history survey that explored the self-critique of the discipline since the 1980s and we studied various models for the survey that emerged from that time. More recently, the Visual Studies Initiative at Duke has created a forum for continued reflection on the interdisciplinary study of images and on the uses and abuses of Art History in the university. I am currently a member of the Experimental Teaching Lab in Art History at Duke and have presented my work and lectures to graduates and undergraduates for peer review.
My introductory courses at present are structured chronologically, partially because this fits in well with the way the larger department is structured. Introductory courses can be structured differently - along conceptual or thematic lines, for instance - if there are other supports within the department for historiographical training and discussion. The chronological structure gives students experience working with historical events and models, which I believe is important to a liberal arts education. To compensate for the potential rigidity of this structure, however, I started to design individual workshops interspersed throughout my courses, which focused on specific themes and concepts. These workshops ranged from focused sessions and readings on Classicism, the Vernacular, to formal analysis, architectural terminology and visual description. These “interruptions” allowed students to step away from the cause-and-effect implications of the historical narrative and to develop skills and ideas that were then applied throughout the course. Feedback from students indicated that these concentrated workshops were useful and memorable. In the future, I plan to develop these workshops further, and to integrate student suggestions at the start of the course into the process of deciding which workshops to organize.
Instructional Technology
I have taken classes and workshops on instructional technology over the past two years and believe that some types of polling technologies and interactive sites present some very rich areas for exploration in university teaching. I am familiar with the basic software in my field such as Blackboard, Powerpoint, FileMaker and Dreamweaver and have integrated online communication and messaging sites such as Wikis and blogs into my classes to expand class communication and for sharing small group projects. I have had successful experiences integrating podcasts, Google Earth and digital films into class assignements, particularly in relation to architecture and urbanism. Current research on the use of classroom technologies unanimously agrees that they provide a useful forum for many students but do not replace personal interaction or face-to-face communication with the instructor. Personal relationships are fundamental to successful student learning and to a full undergraduate experience.
Academic Background
I have a long-standing interest in alternative education and pedagogy. My conducted undergraduate work initially at the New College of the University of South Florida, a small honors college with a pass/fail evaluation system, which was based on the New College at Oxford. I completed my studies at Concordia University, at a Liberal Arts, “Great Books” program, and graduated with a Major in Western Civilization and Culture. From this experience I gained an appreciation for the potential rigor and engagement of undergraduate work, the vividness of primary texts, and for the intellectual confidence it can give students to confront materials and ideas in the most direct way possible.
Plans for the Future
In addition to the courses I have already taught, I welcome the opportunity to teach courses on Art at 1900, Nineteenth-Century Art, History of Aesthetics, and Postmodern Architecture. I would also be interested in directing an advanced seminar on theories of urban space. Over the next two to three years, I plan to develop an introductory course on Islamic art and architecture, which would not only expand the offerings of an art history department, but present a body of materials that provide a different perspective on Western aesthetic models and, by association Western Art History.
