University receives art history grant

Faculty from the graduate program in Visual and Cultural Studies, the first interdisciplinary graduate program of its kind, along with colleagues from other universities will coordinate the Summer Institute for Visual and Cultural Analysis. For five weeks, about 30 scholars will receive an intensive introduction to new theoretical and interpretive strategies in the humanities.

"This institute has particular importance given the dramatic expansion of the art historical community following the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe," said Michael Ann Holly, chair of the Department of Art and Art History. "The scholars who were previously separated by insurmountable ideological and national barriers are now in a position to exchange ideas and to benefit from one another's intellectual and pedagogical experiences."

Holly and Janet Wolff, director of the doctoral program in Visual and Cultural Studies, will organize the institute along with Keith Moxey of Barnard College and Columbia University. They and two other scholars, Stephen Bann of the University of Kent at Canterbury and Douglas Crimp, Rochester professor of art history, will be the resident faculty for the institute, along with six visiting lecturers. The institute will take place from June 28 to July 31, 1998.

The grant for the summer institute is an outgrowth of the Getty Grant Program's six-year initiative for Central and Eastern Europe, which provided individual travel fellowships to scholars from the region.

"The fellowship program had achieved its goal of providing travel opportunities to individuals. Now, in the next phase of the initiative, it is important to bring together Central and Eastern European and other scholars in a forum to create a new intellectual exchange," said Deborah Marrow, program director. "The summer institute is a pilot project that builds upon the initial effort. The University is uniquely suited to host the institute, particularly given the expertise of the participating faculty."

At Rochester, the Visual and Cultural Studies Program stresses the interpretation of art works within a historical and ideological framework. Art is defined in its broadest sense and analyzed by studying relationships between cultural texts and critical theory, such as feminism and psychoanalysis.

Beyond covering the costs of the institute, the Grant Program will give participants from Central and Eastern Europe special travel stipends to undertake supplementary research in the United States following the completion of the institute.

Since 1984, the Getty Grant Program has given more than $62 million to support more than 1,600 projects in 135 countries. The Getty Grant Program, a part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, fosters work of exceptional merit for which resources are otherwise limited. It supports a wide range of projects that promote research in the history of art and related fields, advancement of the understanding of art, and conservation of cultural heritage by individuals and institutions throughout the world.