We are very excited to welcome two new editors to “Asian Art History Dissertation Reviews,” Stephen Whiteman (National Gallery of Art) and Noelle Giuffrida (Case Western Reserve University). Our new duumvirate will continue to bring you friendly, non-critical overviews of recently defended, unpublished dissertations in this dynamic field. If you are interested in having your dissertation reviewed, please fill out the Review Application Form. If you are interested in helping out in some other way, please contact info@dissertationreviews.org. Our Asian Art History Editors can be reached at stephen.whiteman@dissertationreviews.org and noelle.giuffrida@dissertationreviews.org.
Introducing Our Field Editors
Stephen Whiteman is the 2012-2014 A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He earned his AB in the History of Art and Architecture, History and East Asian Studies at Brown University before continuing on first to an MA in East Asian Studies and then his PhD in Art History at Stanford University. His dissertation, “Creating the Kangxi Landscape: Bishu shanzhuang and the Mediation of Qing Imperial Identity,” explores the role of landscape in the articulation of imperial identity during the early Qing dynasty. His publications include an essay in the volume Chinese History in Geographic Perspective (Du and Kyong-McClain, eds., 2013), and forthcoming work in Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes and from Dumbarton Oaks. [Website here]
Noelle Giuffrida is Assistant Professor of East Asian Art at Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on the history of collecting and exhibiting Chinese art and the visual culture of Daoism in Ming and early Qing China. Her forthcoming book, Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee’s Collecting, Exhibitions, and Canon of Chinese Painting in Postwar America, explores how the longtime Cleveland Museum of Art Director and Curator of Oriental Art established himself and the museum’s collection as preeminent in the field. By investigating his pivotal role in art markets, exhibitions, and scholarship at midcentury, she brings to light a critical, yet largely neglected, chapter in the history of collecting and exhibiting East Asian art beyond its countries of origin. Her book is part of a larger ongoing project on the history of acquiring and presenting Chinese art in the postwar era that examines the relationships, circumstances, and strategies of curators, private collectors, dealers, and institutions. Her articles and book chapters have explored the planning, execution, and reception of the 1961-62 Chinese Art Treasures exhibition in the United States; Sherman Lee’s experiences as chairman of the 1973 Art and Archaeology Delegation to the PRC as conveyed in his personal diary; and the development of images of the Daoist patriarch Zhang Daoling in Ming and Qing pictorial art. Before coming to Cleveland, she taught at Vassar College and also served as a curatorial researcher and museum educator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. [Website here]
Image: Zateman, El Real Monasterio de Santo Tomás, Museo de Arte Oriental, Ávila, Spain. Wikimedia Commons.
