On Friday, The University of Alabama will host the 18th annual Graduate Student Symposium in Art History, an annual event shared by the University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The event is sponsored by the departments of art and art history at both schools.
The joint program with UAB enables the programs to offer the only MA in art history in the state of Alabama. It also allows both schools to share faculty, students and resources from each campus and each community so that all who are involved are able to benefit.
The goal of the event is to bring students from both campuses together so they can hear and be heard by eminent scholars who are working in the field of art history.
“We are very proud of this long-running scholarly event that benefits our students and the community,” Rachel Dobson, communications specialist and visual resources curator for the art and art history department, said.
Andrew Hottle, associate professor of art history at Rowan University, will speak about his current research in a talk titled, “Why Are You Doing This?… and Other Questions about Rescuing Art from the Dustbin of History.”
“My talk is about the importance of preserving and researching art while we have access to the actual work and the documents that pertain to it,” Hottle said. “If we wait too long, a great deal of it will have disappeared. Some of it is already gone.”
Hottle said he decided to focus his research exclusively on artists who are women in 2006.
“While women have made significant progress over the last 40 years, we still have work to do,” Hottle said. “Women are much better recognized as artists in the 21st century, but many of the pioneers who made that possible are still overlooked by historians.”
Hottle will combine humorous tales with a more serious message about the urgency and importance of preserving the art of our recent past.
“I think he will be engaging, entertaining and maybe even a little provocative,” Dobson said.
Anyone interested in current scholarship in the field of art history is encouraged to attend. Morning presentations are primarily for graduate students, but Dobson said anyone is welcome.
“Creative activity is fundamental to human experience. It is all around us,” Hottle said. “Art is inextricably linked to our humanness. It has the power to transcend time and place to communicate with people who had absolutely no connection to or awareness of an individual artist.”
Hottle said he hopes students will attend the symposium because art history is the study of cultural history, and that is something that is relevant to all of us.
“By exploring the past, through a symposium in this case, we often learn something about ourselves,” Hottle said. “College is a time to learn new things and expand one’s horizons. I hope students would want to know about their history.”
The symposium will last all day, beginning with nine graduate student presentations and Hottle’s keynote lecture at 4 p.m.
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