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Roundtable on Women's Studies and Art/Art History
National Association of Women's Studies Conference
Boston, Massachusetts, June 14-18, 2000
The roundtable discussion identifies barriers to linking Women's Studies, Art History and Art departments and seeks practical ways to facilitate interdepartmental collaboration and cooperation. The need for discussion and action is exemplified by the absence of Art History/Art as an NWSA special interest group. That absence reflects a disconnection widely recognized in anecdotal or personal communications, especially among students. Lack of interdisciplinarity has negative consequences for the training of scholars with a variety of new perspectives, especially feminist views of the history and production of art.
During the 1970s, feminist art, feminist art criticism and the contributions of feminist art historians stimulated dialogue and study in both academic and non-academic communities. Feminist art created a public space shared by women of varied ages and backgrounds. Individual responses to the art stimulated contention and curiosity about the representation of women in art and the role available to women in the production of art.
Women responded in a range of ways, from academic research to community protests directed at public museums. The development of Women's Studies programs encouraged hope that feminist art would provide a point of entry for new perspectives in art history. Women art students today, unfortunately, are still discouraged from creating art that deviates from patriarchal models. Students with feminist research perspectives are discouraged from pursuing advanced study in art history. The 19th century Eurocentric patriarchal matrix for reading the history of visual art remains largely unchanged in 2000.
Interdisciplinary opportunities to revisit and reconceive the history of art are inadequate. Scholars in cultural, visual and multi-identity studies are rarely trained in art history. Art historians are inadequately informed about the disciplines that dominate new and developing fields of study. Scholarship and current/future students are restrained by such limitations.
The complexity of the questions involved in identifying barriers to cooperative activity limits this 75-minute roundtable to the launching of an ongoing discussion. The organizers are primarily concerned to bring together all NWSA conference participants interested in these issues. More comprehensive interdisciplinary exchanges, with travel expenses underwritten, may follow, depending upon the response.
Invited participants include artists, art historians, curators, interdisciplinary scholars and museum studies professionals. Active participation by the audience is expected. All interested parties are invited and welcome, regardless of their professional identification. The organizers are Mary Jo Aagerstoun, PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Maryland, and Mary Ross Taylor, who holds an MA in Museum Studies and has extensive experience with multi-disciplinary use of traveling or temporary art
exhibitions.
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