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Symposium 2008
Fun and Games: The Principle of Pleasure in Art and Architecture

The 23rd Annual Graduate Art History Symposium, Fun and Games: The Principle of Pleasure in Art and Architecture, will be held on Friday, March 7, and Saturday, March 8, 2007. This series of events is designed to explore appearances of entertainment, play, pleasure, and leisure in visual culture, whether “highbrow,” “middlebrow,” or “lowbrow.”

Keynote Events

The symposium will commence at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 7, with a keynote dinner, to be held in the Atrium of Art Building West, after which, at 8 p.m., Dr. Margaretta Lovell, of the University of California at Berkeley, will deliver a keynote lecture in the Auditorium, on the second floor, of Art Building West. Dr. Lovell will speak on “Winslow Homer, the Adirondack Mountains, and the Great Camps: Scenes of Instruction, Predation, and Play.” The dinner is by invitation; the keynote lecture is free and open to the public.

Graduate Student Papers

During the second day of the symposium, select graduate students from around the nation will present their recent scholarship pertaining to the themes of entertainment, leisure, and pleasure in art and architecture. In order to facilitate a wide-ranging and inclusive discussion of the symposium topic, papers will not be limited by historical period, artistic medium, or interpretive methodology.

9:15-9:45: Hyun Tae Jung
Assistant Professor in Architecture
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
“The New York World’s Fair of 1939 and Architecture”

9:45-10:15: Theresa Bembnister
M.A. Candidate, Art History and Museum Studies
Case Western Reserve University,
“Power Play: Cartoon Style in Philip Guston’s Tour”

10:15-10:30: Break

10:30-11:00: Jessica Hoffman
PhD Candidate, Art History
University of Maryland
“From Naughty to Nice: Adriaen van Ostade’s Tavern Interiors”

11:00-11:30: Katherine Iselin
M.A. Candidate, Art History
University of Wisconsin –Milwaukee
“Chess, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Art”

11:30-12:00: Christina Larson
PhD Candidate, Art History
Case Western Reserve University
“It's All Fun and Games...But at Whose Expense? Viktor Schreckengost’s Blue Revel”

12:00-1:30: Lunch Break

1:30-2:00: Michèle Pollak
M.A. Candidate, Fine Arts and Art History
George Washington University
“A Guessing Game Devised by Duchamp: Interpreting Why Not Sneeze, Rrose Sélavy?”

2:00-2:30: Lisa Neal Tice
PhD Candidate, Italian Renaissance Art and Architectural History
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
“Non-Residential Casini on Villa Properties in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Rome and Its Periphery”

2:30-3:00: Cinda Nofziger
PhD Candidate, American Studies
The University of Iowa
“On the Scene and Being Seen: Tourists in American Landscape Art”

Student Art Exhibition

The symposium will be supplemented with an exhibition of artwork by students in the School of Art and Art History’s studio program. Works will address the subjects of pleasure, play, entertainment, or leisure in some capacity. The exhibition will open with a reception at 1 p.m. on Friday, March 7, and will be held in the IMU Gallery of the Iowa Memorial Union. Works will be on display through the end of March.

For information about symposium events, please contact Megan Masana, Symposium Chair, at masanam@aol.com. The 23rd Annual Graduate Art History Symposium is presented by AHS (the University of Iowa graduate Art History Society) and the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History.