Hello Alumni,

Lately I’ve been paying special attention to the cherry blossoms and magnolia trees around the city. Two weekends ago, I had a glorious walk around the reservoir in Central Park during which I admired a cluster of trees that were dense with pink blossoms. From a distance, they appeared as clouds, their stray branches like wisps against a cerulean blue sky. I wonder what sights, smells, or sounds are drawing you in this Earth Month, or this spring. 

As always, get in touch with your news either by email or through the online form. I love hearing from you!

With care,
Rachael Schwabe (MA ‘20)
alumni@bgc.bard.edu

Alumni Spotlight

Ann Marguerite Tartsinis (MA ‘11) and Sarah Scaturro (PhD Candidate) have co-edited a special issue of the journal Fashion Studies on the state of the field. This issue also includes the work of Linden J. Hill (MA ‘15) who interviewed Sungano Kanjere about their Between Histories Archive. Well done, all!

Please help spread the word!

BGC’s Summer School for Undergrads
Applications Due May 1

This summer, BGC’s course for undergrads focuses on the historical archaeology of New York City. The two-week course offers college credit and housing at Bard Hall. Learn More.

Select Career Opportunities

Select BGC Events

Cripping Things in Late Nineteenth-Century Art
Tuesday, April 25
6 pm (In Person)
​​Monet was going blind and had to wear special cataract glasses. Renoir became so arthritic, he used a wheelchair and had paintbrushes strapped to his wrists. The history of French impressionist art is filled with legends about its most famous practitioners, their bodily impairments, and the ways these were believed to have shaped their art. Professor Elizabeth Guffey’s lecture uses the French impressionists and their art to introduce the notion of crip objects. In so doing, it suggests that material objects related to disability are useful in helping us understand a range of issues related to human embodiment and the sensorium, all the while raising more complex questions about artistic creativity.

26th Annual Iris Foundation Awards
Wednesday, April 26
12 pm (In Person)
This year’s Iris Awards will take place at the Cosmopolitan Club. Awardees include Outstanding Patrons, Outstanding Lifetime Scholar, Outstanding Mid-Career Scholar, and Outstanding Dealers. Click here for past Iris Foundation Award recipients. Proceeds from the Iris Foundation Awards benefit the Bard Graduate Center scholarships and student research.

Scenes from Dinétah
Wednesday, April 26
6 pm (In Person)
Join us for a special concert with acclaimed Diné pianist and composer Connor Chee, featuring piano pieces written about elements of Navajo life, land, and culture, including weaving. It will be followed by a conversation with Shaped by the Loom exhibition curator Hadley Jensen.

Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds Online
Monday, May 1
5 pm
As a complement to our new exhibition, Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest, we have created a digital project that invites you to explore the world of Navajo weaving. Highlighting Diné history, culture, and cosmology, as well as the localized and land-based knowledge systems that guide the making process, this dynamic online experience presents weaving as an art form, a cultural practice, and a lived experience. Join curator Hadley Jensen and the Director of Digital Humanities/Exhibitions at Bard Graduate Center Jesse Merandy for a virtual walk through of this collaborative multimedia project. Learn more about its background, development, and design, as well as the many interactive features that immerse users in the work of Diné weavers and visual artists.

Not Native American Art? Forgeries, Replicas, and Other Vexed Identities
Wednesday, May 3
6 pm (In Person)
In Native North American artistic traditions, what is a replica? What constitutes a copy? In contrast with the larger field of art history, there is almost no literature on forgeries and replicas in this sub-field. Join us for Janet Catherine Berlo’s lecture, adapted from the introduction to her forthcoming book, Not Native American Art. Berlo considers notions of replicas, copies, tributes, forgeries, pastiches, and even digital surrogates as they apply to archaeological, historical, and contemporary Native arts of North America.

Select Virtual and In-Person Events in the World

Artist Spotlight: Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman
Thursday, April 20
6 pm ET
This artist spotlight, moderated by Kate Menconeri, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, Contemporary Art, and Fellowship at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, will focus on Dion and Rockman’s artistic practices, the themes present in their work such as natural history and climate change, and their decades-long friendship. 

In the Treasure Room of the Sakra King: Votive Coinage from Gandharan Shrines
Wednesday, April 26
6:30 pm ET
In a lush valley within the Sakra peak in Gandhara (northwestern Pakistan, towards the Afghanistan border) is a vast limestone cave temple, part of an ancient Hindu sacred complex. From the 4th to 12th centuries, this cluster of shrines produced hundreds of varieties of their own votive coinage – a unique case in Central and South Asia.  These were miniscule copper coins, issued for pilgrims, featuring eclectic and original combinations of Greco-Roman, Iranian, Indic, and Islamic iconography.  The talk relates the remarkable story of transculturation and artistic innovation during the most neglected yet formative years of the region’s history. 

Image and Identity Symposium: Representing Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest before 1900
Friday, April 28 – Saturday, April 29
Various Times 
The biennial David B. Warren Symposium addresses different aspects of the theme “American Material Culture and the Texas Experience” before 1900. The symposium was established in honor of David B. Warren, founding director emeritus of Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens. The 2023 symposium focuses on “Image and Identity.” The presentations explore the ways images that were created in and of Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest constructed, represented, dismantled, or concealed the identity of the people who lived there.

Embroidering the Crown
Thursday, May 4
1 pm ET (In Person)
In anticipation of the coronation of Charles III of England this spring, the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center is presenting a micro exhibition featuring four 17th-century English embroideries in the collection — hidden gems connected to the Stuart dynasty. Deeply wedded to court iconography and classical mythology, these textiles reflect the familial ties, marital aspirations and court intrigues related to Charles I and his children: Charles II, Princess Mary and James II. Join GW professor Rachel Pollack in the galleries for a lively discussion of the myths, music and court portraiture that may have influenced the making of these royal embroideries.

Byzantine Studies Spring Symposium: Ancient Histories and History Writing in New Rome
Friday, May 5 – Saturday, May 6
Various Times
This interdisciplinary symposium brings together scholars of ancient and medieval historical writing to explore connections and interactions between ancient Greek, biblical, classical Roman, and medieval Roman histories. Authors writing histories in eastern Roman society interacted variously with earlier Roman and Greek histories, as well as biblical histories, to construct conceptions of their community’s identities and relationships with the past. Rhetorical alignments signaled conformity with or breaking from previous strands with these complex cultural traditions. Our explorations of the various ways medieval writers used, adapted, distorted, or ignored earlier texts will help us understand the complexities and nuances of medieval eastern Roman culture, community identity, and politics. In turn, the study of medieval uses of the classical historiographical tradition will yield fresh insights into the ways medieval attitudes and decisions shaped the preservation and creation of the classical canon.

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Gaggle.mail is an opt-in list-serv that serves as a place to share job openings, conference attendance, published books/articles, and exhibition openings directly with fellow alums. It’s a communication forum for alumni, by alumni. To circulate your news in the Gaggle group, send an email to bgcalumni@gaggle.email.