Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Mapping The Theaters Of Brooklyn's Past (1825-1925): A Gis Project, Elena Shefsky Dec 2023

Mapping The Theaters Of Brooklyn's Past (1825-1925): A Gis Project, Elena Shefsky

Publications and Research

Despite its rich performance culture, Brooklyn remains underrepresented in theater history, eclipsed in fame by the well-known theaters of Manhattan. One of the most populous areas in America, Brooklyn has been an artistic home to actors, playwrights, directors, and impresarios for centuries. That said, there is a dearth of accessible information and scholarship on Brooklyn theaters. My objective was to update an ongoing mapping project, The City Performs, to include information and images of theater buildings from Brooklyn. The project is an interactive, open-source digital map that uses ArcGIS software to georeference data about NYC theaters. I collected data …


Dating Deborah Hall: A Portrait Reconsidered, Brian E. Hack Jul 2021

Dating Deborah Hall: A Portrait Reconsidered, Brian E. Hack

Publications and Research

The elaborate, full-length portrait of Deborah Hall (1766, Brooklyn Museum) is one of the landmarks of Colonial portraiture, having earned its place in the canon for the pictorial innovations displayed by its creator, the enigmatic William Williams (1727-1791). The dominant narrative holds that Hall, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Philadelphia printer David hall, tends her roses in an imaginary Garden of Love, surroundings Williams adapted from symbols of beauty and chastity found in emblem books of the period. The scholarly assumption is that the painting served to promote Deborah's marital suitability to potential suitors visiting the Hall residence. The current …


Using Monuments To Teach About Racism, Colonialism, And Sexism, Susan Phillip Nov 2020

Using Monuments To Teach About Racism, Colonialism, And Sexism, Susan Phillip

Publications and Research

This chapter examines how an interdisciplinary high-impact practice approach to teaching and learning using selected contested monuments can reveal intersections of racism, colonialism, and sexism, and lay the foundation for students’ civic engagement. In place-based and virtual experiences, students observe and investigate local and national monuments, integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines, including history, psychology, art, culture, and tourism. Students make critical analyses about how monuments reveal power relationships in our society. Students from various disciplines explore the origin of contested monuments, the evolving national and local debates around them, and their effect on students’ learning to evaluate historical, contemporary, and …


An Ode To James Van Der Zee: Lorna Simpson’S 9 Props, Emilie C. Boone Nov 2020

An Ode To James Van Der Zee: Lorna Simpson’S 9 Props, Emilie C. Boone

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.


Aids Normalization, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr Jul 2020

Aids Normalization, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr

Publications and Research

Review of On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work, curated by Alexis Heller for New York’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which was on view from September 2019 to January 2020, and other contemporary AIDS culture.


Reproducing The New Negro: James Van Der Zee’S Photographic Vision In Newsprint, Emilie C. Boone Jul 2020

Reproducing The New Negro: James Van Der Zee’S Photographic Vision In Newsprint, Emilie C. Boone

Publications and Research

In the summer of 1924, as a departure from his concentration on portraits in his Harlem studio, James Van Der Zee served as the official photographer for the Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Many of the resulting photographs were published in the organization’s popular, internationally distributed newspaper, the Negro World. The newsprint medium in which the UNIA photographs appeared in reproduction, along with their editorial arrangement on the page, animated a different photographic vision from that of the gelatin silver print studio portraits often celebrated as Van Der Zee’s defining contribution …


Losing Its Way: The Landmarks Preservation Commission In Eclipse, Jeffrey A. Kroessler Aug 2018

Losing Its Way: The Landmarks Preservation Commission In Eclipse, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has an admirable history of protecting the city's historic character. Increasingly in recent years, the commission has backed away from proactively designated sites of historical, architectural, or cultural significance as city landmarks. At the same time, the commission has shown greater deference to the owner of a property when deciding whether to designate, and to the wishes of the owners of designated properties in matters of regulation, notwithstanding that owner consent is nowhere in the landmarks law. At the same time, the commission has introduced new definitions, such as “period of significance,” contributing/non-contributing, and …


Ode To The Sea: Art From Guantanamo, Erin L. Thompson, Charles Shields, Paige Laino Feb 2018

Ode To The Sea: Art From Guantanamo, Erin L. Thompson, Charles Shields, Paige Laino

Publications and Research

Exhibition catalogue for “Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo” (October 16, 2017-January 26, 2018, President's Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York). Detainees at the United States military prison camp known as Guantánamo Bay have made art from the time they arrived. The exhibit displays some of these evocative works, made by eight men: four who have since been cleared and released from Guantánamo, and four who remain there. They paint the sea again and again although they cannot reach it. The catalog includes contributions by Trevor Paglen, Solmaz Sharif, Natasha Trethewey, Jericho Brown, and current and …


Silent Protest And The Art Of Paper Folding: The Golden Venture Paper Sculptures At The Museum Of Chinese In America, Sandra Cheng Jan 2016

Silent Protest And The Art Of Paper Folding: The Golden Venture Paper Sculptures At The Museum Of Chinese In America, Sandra Cheng

Publications and Research

Housed in the Museum of Chinese in America is the Fly to Freedom collection of paper art, which were produced by a traditional folk method of Chinese paper folding. The 123 paper works were created by detainees of the Golden Venture, a freighter used to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the U.S. On the evening of June 6, 1993, the ship ran aground off the Rockaways in New York City and nearly 300 migrants, gaunt from the four-month ordeal at sea, poured out of the cramped windowless hold of the vessel. Several drowned that night, a few escaped, but the majority …


Preserving The Historic Garden Suburb: Case Studies From London And New York, Jeffrey A. Kroessler Jan 2014

Preserving The Historic Garden Suburb: Case Studies From London And New York, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

The garden city or garden suburb was a response to the social and environmental ills of cities at the turn of the twentieth century. Letchworth Garden City, Hampstead Garden Suburb, and Welwyn Garden City were built outside London in the early 1900s, and each remains a highly desirable place of residence today. From the start, each was tightly regulated, and remains so a century later. By protecting the appearance and enhancing property values, the strict application of historic preservation principles contribute to the long-term sustainability of each place. Similar garden suburbs were built in the borough of Queens in New …


William Henry Aspinwall (1807-1875), Janet Butler Munch Jan 2003

William Henry Aspinwall (1807-1875), Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

William Henry Aspinwall (1807-1875) was a 19th century New York City "merchant prince."


Villas On The Hudson: An Architectural And Biographical Examination, Janet Butler Munch Sep 1993

Villas On The Hudson: An Architectural And Biographical Examination, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

A study of Villas on the Hudson: A Collection of Photo-Lithographs of Thirty-One Country Residences (D. Appleton & Co., 1860) depicts floor plans and views of stately homes of 19th century country gentlemen that were located in today's upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester County, Dutchess County, and even Hoboken, NJ. When published, architecture was in its infancy as a profession and we see representative works of A.J. Davis, J.C Wells, T.R. Jackson and D. Lienau, and others. The accomplishments and interests of the villa’s owners are discussed; and the current status and use of the surviving eleven villas are …