2011-2012 Graduate Students

Biography

Emily Anderson, a Dallas native, recently graduated from Tufts University in May. She double majored in Art History and Archaeology with concentrations in the Southern Renaissance and Mediterranean Archaeology. She completed a Senior Honors Thesis on the use of cameos in sixteenth century Florentine portraiture entitled “An Image within An Image: The Representation of Cameos in Renaissance Portraiture.” During her time at Tufts, she also participated in the Marsala Hinterland Archaeological Field Survey in which she scoured the fields of western Sicily for artifacts. She also spent a semester abroad in Siena, Italy through CET Academic Programs. In Siena, she focused on the Italian Language, Medieval Sienese art, and Etruscan archaeology. In addition to her academic interests, she was a proud member of TUPAC (Tufts University Presents Archaeology and Classics), the Art History Society, and the president of the Tufts Knitting Club. At Tufts, she worked full time in the Costume Shop for the Department of Drama and Dance. She also costume designed numerous shows including the faculty production of Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights. Now in the RASC/a program at SMU, she is looking forward to delving more into her recent interests. Her current research involves early modern decorative arts and the material and visual culture of Sicily.

Biography

Valeria Espita was born and raised in Mexico City. She has always been interested in art, literature, and languages; those interests led her to study French Language and Literature at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City from 2005 to 2009. During this period, she also pursued her passion for languages by learning French, Italian and German. After completing her studies in this area, she decided to explore the field of visual arts. In 2010 she received a Fulbright scholarship to come to SMU and pursue a MA in Art History. She is interested in studying modern and contemporary art, and will be focusing on Latin American art. She is currently writing her thesis on Miguel Covarrubias, a Mexican artist and anthropologist with a fascinating life and oeuvre. She is writing about a mural that is part of the remarkable collection of the Dallas Museum of Art. This museum provided her with the opportunity to be an intern during the summer; it was an experience that gave her experience in the curatorial field and enriched her stay in Dallas.

Biography

Sarah Foltz is interested in a variety of art historical areas, including Northern European early modern through modern art, history of photography, and art of the Americas, with emphasis on American regionalism and Texas art. She is particularly interested in issues of collecting practices, connoisseurship, and the art market. Prior to enrollment, Sarah’s experiences include museum and gallery work, specializing in fine art, appraisals, photography, and decorative arts. Sarah worked as a gallery director and assistant fine art appraiser in Austin, Texas for four years after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 with a Bachelor in Photojournalism. In addition, Sarah completed the Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts professional certificate program through New York University in 2008, and at present, is an Associate of the Appraisers Association of America.

Biography

Joe Hartman is a first year PhD candidate in the RASC/a program at Southern Methodist University. His research interests include cultural geography, performance, phenomenology, and visual culture. His current work focuses on the art and architecture of the Iberian and Ibero-American worlds, especially early modern Ecuador. Hartman recently completed a master’s in art history at the University of North Texas in 2011. His thesis, “The Ceiba Tree as a Multivocal Signifier: Afro-Cuban Symbolism and Urban Space in the Early Cuban Republic” originates from seminar work on visual culture in the African diaspora and theories of transculturation in the colonial and early modern periods. He also pursued a minor focus in ancient and medieval art of the Mediterranean. Before his arrival in Texas, Hartman taught art for several years in Indiana. His experience ranges from high school media arts, visual education for inner-city middle school students, and general art for elementary students. He acquired a bachelor’s degree in art and Spanish at Goshen College, Indiana in 2007 where he also received a certification in k-12 education. As an undergraduate, Hartman enjoyed creating editorial cartoons for the Goshen Record newspaper and acting in several main stage plays. Now his days are filled with reading books, writing, thinking, and, most importantly, quality time with his wife and cat.

Biography

Margarita Karasoulas (B.A. Art History, History, Lafayette College, 2008) is a second year Master’s student specializing in late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century American art. She is writing her Master’s thesis on a lithograph by George Bellows, The Law is Too Slow (1923), which focuses on the aesthetics of violence, lynching and religious narratives, and early twentieth century print culture. Margarita’s research interests also include modern and contemporary Latin America, particularly Mexican and Chicano art. She wrote her undergraduate thesis on Frida Kahlo and the intersection of art and politics. This past summer, Margarita worked as a curatorial intern at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. She plans to pursue a PhD in Art History and curatorial studies after the completion of her degree.

Biography

Jennifer Lee is a second-year Master’s student at Southern Methodist University. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis where she received the Mark S. Weil Prize for Distinction in Art History and Museum Practice for her undergraduate thesis, “Designs for a Nativity of Adoration of the Christ Child: An Example of Leonardo’s Drawing Practice.” She has held internship positions at the Dallas Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is currently working on her Master’s thesis with Dr. Lisa Pon on the transmission and practice of artistic knowledge in the Italian Renaissance. Jennifer’s research was inspired by and focuses on a drawing in the Bridwell Library collection, and she strongly encourages future SMU graduate students to take advantage of the wonderful art on campus and in the local Dallas-Fort Worth collections when considering their own research topics.

Biography

Brittany Luberda joins the Southern Methodist University Master’s Program with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History from the University of Chicago. Her research interests include the intersection of religion, politics, and representation, the Salon, and frameworks of hierarchy within the eighteenth and nineteenth century. From 2009 to 2010, Brittany held the McDermott Curatorial Internship in European and American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Prior to that, she was a research intern in Medieval through Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Prints, Drawings and Photographs department at the St. Louis Art Museum. She returns to Dallas after a year teaching in Toulouse, France.

Biography

Jun Nakamura is a first year masters student in art history. His research interests are in the Renaissance and Baroque, particularly printmaking and the Dutch Golden Age. He received a BFA in Fashion with a second major of Art History in 2010 from Washington University in St. Louis. His general interests are comic books, sandwiches, Godzilla, and classic country.

Biography

Lauren Richman is a first year MA student focusing on modern and contemporary art, specifically the history of photography and 20th century to contemporary installation work. Her research interests include themes of trauma, the Holocaust, representations of memory, and explorations of loss and memorial in postwar French and German art. Lauren received her BA in the History of Art (minors in French, Studio Art) from Vanderbilt University in 2011. She worked as an intern at the Art Institute of Chicago (Dept. of Photography), Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, New Orleans Museum of Art, and Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery. Upon completion of her Masters, Lauren plans to continue her graduate studies for the doctoral degree.

Biography

Mariana von Hartenthal is from Curitiba, a city in the South of Brazil. She studied Architecture and Urban Planning as an undergrad; shortly after she graduated she went to England where she took an MA in Museum Studies at the University of Southampton. Later on, she took another Master’s, this time in the area of Technology and Interaction (at the Federal University for Technology – Paraná, Brazil), which allowed her to research the way we perceive and interact with space, a longstanding interest of hers. While doing research for her MA thesis, she realized that some remarkable aspects of the interplay between people and space were first investigated by artists, which is how she arrived at studying art history. Although she did not follow an orthodox path in her academic career, she is happy to say that this has not been a problem here at RASC/a -- quite the opposite. Faculty members and colleagues are open to hearing about different perspectives, which is one of the aspects that make the program so exciting. Here, she feels encouraged to pursue her main research goal: the role of art in our understanding and construction of urban space, especially focusing on Latin American cities of the 20th century.