David Bjelajac, Professor of Art History
PhD University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Professor Bjelajac is the author of Millennial Desire and the Apocalyptic Vision of Washington Allston (Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington, 1988), Washington Allston, Secret Societies and the Alchemy of Anglo-American Painting (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1997), and American Art: A Cultural History (Abrams and Prentice Hall, 2000). He also has contributed articles to American Iconology: New Approaches to Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature, ed. David C. Miller (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1993) and The Visual Culture of American Religions, eds. Sally Promey and David Morgan (University of California Press, 2000). He has published other essays and reviews in such journals as American Art, American Historical Review, The Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies and The Journal of Religion. Professor Bjelajac serves on the editorial board for Esoterica: The Journal of Esoteric Studies. Professor Bjelajac teaches eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art and visual culture. Professor Bjelajac also participates in the Human Sciences program, which offers an interdisciplinary doctoral degree with a possible specialization in art history.

James Carder, Assistant Professorial Lecturer in Art History
PhD University of Pittsburgh

Professor Carder curates the House Collection at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, DC. He is the author of Codex Arcerianus A (Garland: New York and London, 1978) and co-author with Julius Held of European and American Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Art, Ponce (Ferr? Press: Ponce, 1982; revised edition, 1987). He has also written various articles and reviews for the Art Bulletin, Gesta, Archaeological News and other professional publications. He has contributed to exhibition catalogues, including Degas & America: The Early Collectors (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2000) and The Age of Spirituality (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979). Professor Carder teaches European and American decorative arts and architecture.

Alexander Dumbadze, Assistant Professor of Art History
PhD University of Texas at Austin

Professor Dumbadze is currently at work on a book length manuscript entitled Death Is Elsewhere: Bas Jan Ader and the Tension Between Individual Will and Determinism in the 1970s.  He is a founder (along with Suzanne Hudson and Joshua Shannon) of the Society of Contemporary Art Historians, a College Art Association affiliated society. He is also founder (again with Suzanne Hudson and Joshua Shannon) of the Contemporary Art Think Tank, an organization devoted to bringing together art historians, curators, and critics for discussions on pressing concerns in contemporary art (www.cattdc.net). Prof. Dumbadze's recent publications include "Can You Hear the Lights?" in Art, History and the Senses; "Entendez-voux la lumiere?" in Mamco Revue; "Frustration, History, Faith" in Matthew Day Jackson: High, Low and In Between; and "Of Man and Nature" in Cameron Martin: Analogue. He has recently lectured on "Fuck It: Or, Death Is Elsewhere: Rudimentary Thoughts on Commitment," "Spectacle and Death," "Bas Jan Ader's Will," and "Fuck It: 24 Preliminary Notes on the Art World, Complicity, and the Lost Causes." Prof. Dumbadze teaches courses on Contemporary Art, Theory, and Historiography.

Susanne Francoeur, Assistant Professorial Lecturer in Art History
PhD Columbia University

Professor Francoeur teaches the early art of Central Asia and South Asia; she has presented various papers on early Buddhist art and is currently writing a monograph on the fifth-century Buddhist cave temples of Ajanta in Maharashtra, India.
Professor Francoeur teaches the art of South Asia and East Asia and an interdisciplinary course in Asian Humanities.

Philip Jacks, Associate Professor of Art History
PhD University of Chicago

Professor Jacks is author of The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1993), Vasari's Florence: Artists and Literati at the Medicean Court (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1998) and co-author of The Spinelli of Florence: Fortunes of a Renaissance Merchant Family (Penn State University Press: University Park, 2001). He has published essays in Art Bulletin, Arte lombarda, Architectura, Renaissance Quarterly, and Romisches Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte and in collections of papers. He contributed the introduction and notes to the forthcoming Random House edition of Vasari's Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Professor Jacks teaches Renaissance art, historiography and urban topography.

Bibiana Obler, Assistant Professor of Art History
PhD University of California, Berkeley

Professor Obler’s research and teaching interests include European and American art from the late nineteenth century to the present, with emphases on early twentieth century avant-gardes, theories of gender and cross-cultural representation, film studies, applied arts, and intellectual history. She is currently preparing a book manuscript on the role of intimate collaboration in the emergence of abstract art, focusing on two artist couples: Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky, and Sophie Taeuber and Hans Arp. An article based on this research came out in the June 2009 issue of The Art Bulletin. She has also recently published an essay on Kiki and Tony Smith in the Sculpture Journal, and has begun work on a new project investigating the “anti- craft tradition."

Lilien F. Robinson, Professor of Art History
PhD Johns Hopkins University

Professor Robinson received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University.  A specialist in nineteenth-century European art, her current research focuses on Serbian painting.  Her journal articles on various aspects of this topic, published in Serbian Studies, include "Interpreting Western Academic Traditions in 19th-Century Serbian Painting"(2008), "Inspiration and Affirmation of Revolution in 19th-Century Serbian Art"(2005), and "19th-Century Serbian Painting: A Confluence of Nationalism and Secularism" (2003).
She is the author of La Vie Moderne: 19th Century French Art in the Corcoran Gallery and co-author of Antoine-Louis Barye.  She was guest curator of the accompanying exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery.
Professor Robinson is the author of "Anna Klumpke: In Context" in Anne Klumpke (Arizona State University), Patterns in People, Places, and Things (Richard Green Galleries, London) and exhibition catalogs* on the work of artists* exhibiting in New York, Ohio, Washington DC, and Maryland.
She has presented papers at the annual conventions of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and lectures for the National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran Gallery, University of Houston and the Smithsonian.
Professor Robinson is the recipient of the GWU Award, the Columbian College Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Trachtenberg Service Prize.

Barbara von Barghahn, Professor of Art History
PhD Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
 
Professor von Barghahn is author of Age of Gold, Age of Iron: Renaissance Spain and Symbols of Monarchy (University Press of American: Lanham, 1986); Philip IV and the "Golden House" of the Buen Retiro: In the Tradition of Caesar (Garland Press: New York-London, 1986). She has contributed articles to Apollo Magazine, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Latin American Arts Magazine, Tradicion Revista, Pantheon, as well as essays to books: Archivos do Centro Cultural Português  (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1986); The Struggle for Synthesis. The Total Work of Art in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico e Arqueologico, 1999).  Among various exhibition catalogues, Professor von Barghahn was a primary contributor to Temples of Gold, Crown of Silver: Reflections of Majesty in the Viceregal Americas (The OAS Art Museum of the Americas and GWU Dimock Gallery, 1991); The Sacred and the Profane: Josefa de Óbidos of Portugal (1630-1684) (National Museum of Women in the Arts-London European Academy for the Arts); and The Holy Family as Prototype of the Civilization of Love: Images from the Viceregal Americas (Philadelphia: St. Joseph's University, 1996).  Professor Von Barghahn is Knight Commander of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator, an honor conferred on her, in 1993, by President Mario Soares of Portugal. Professor Von Barghahn teaches Northern Renaissance and Baroque art, in particular the art of Spain and Portugal.



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last updated 17 August 2009