News
PhD Candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to the UK this spring to visit collections at the Bodleian Library and present her research at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds…
This summer, Ph. D Candidate Casey Carsel travelled to London, Manchester, Prague, and Warsaw, conducting initial exploratory dissertation research at various archives. Highlights included a visit…
In August 2026, Ph.D. candidate Christy Sher traveled to Cambridge, UK, to attend the Mitsubishi Corporation Summer School in Early Modern Japanese Palaeography at the University of Cambridge,…
In August of 2026, PhD candidate Peter Smyth traveled to London and Paris to conduct research for a dissertation chapter tracing the meaning of the term “cartoon.” In London, Smyth spent two days…
During a recent trip to Düsseldorf and Frankfurt Germany, History of Art PhD candidate Bowie Kim conducted research for her upcoming dissertation on AI-generated art and the visual effects of AI…
PhD Candidate Cole J. Graham recently spent several weeks in Europe, where he first visited the Université Paris-Nanterre to attend a symposium arranged by the Société d’Études Modernistes. There, he…
In June 2026, PhD candidate Dareen Hussein presented new research from her dissertation at two conferences: the International Association of Middle Eastern Studies in Madrid, Spain, and the…
From March through May, PhD candidate Peter Smyth served as the third Gallery and Exhibitions Visiting Fellow at Asia Society Hong Kong Center. While there, Peter helped open the exhibition
In May 2026, PhD candidate Christy Sher traveled to McGill University in Canada to consult Japanese medical materials relevant to her dissertation research.
During her visit to the Osler…
In April of 2026, PhD candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany in order to visit collections and historical sites relevant to her dissertation, “Making and Breaking…
In April 2026, PhD candidate Tony Del Aversano attended the 25th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, in Rochester, New York. There, he presented his paper “Queering the Holy Court: Angel…
Emilela Thomas-Adams, a PhD candidate in the department, presented a paper entitled “’Er want mich in waz er gehaben moht’: Medieval Community and Therapeutic Reuse” at the 42nd Annual Mary L…
Asia Adomanis, a doctoral candidate in the department, presented a paper entitled “Monumental Immateriality: Abstractions and Borders in Tseng Yuho’s Western Frontier (1964)” as part of…
Christy Sher, PhD candidate, recently visited the Clendening History of Medicine Library and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas to conduct object-based research in support of…
PhD Student Michiko Kubota traveled to Chicago in mid-February to present at the College Art Association 2026 conference. Participating in the panel on “Gendered Mediations: Materials, Mediums,…
In January, PhD student Tony Del Aversano traveled to Florence, Italy to see the exhibition Fra Angelico, a retrospective on the renowned fifteenth-century Italian artist. There, he saw…
At the start of January, PhD candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to the Netherlands and Belgium in order to visit collections related to her dissertation, “Making and Breaking Enclosure: the Movement…
Ph.D. candidate Christy Sher presented a paper titled “Procreative Passions: Visualizing Love, Desire, and Lineage in Edo-Period Japanese Erotica” at the 51st Annual Cleveland Symposium on
This semester, PhD candidate Asia Adomanis traveled to Washington, D.C., and New York to conduct dissertation research on the artist Tseng Yuho. Asia visited the Smithsonian Institute Archives in…
In June 2025, PhD candidate Dareen Hussein presented a paper entitled "Les deux écrans and the Shaping of Contemporary Arab Women's Film Criticism" at the 2025 European Network of Cinema and Media…
Ph.D. student Christy Sher attended the Kuzushiji workshop at the University of Chicago this past weekend (October 3-4), led by Professor Emeritus Takahashi Akinori of the Graduate School…
Last Thursday, September 18th, PhD Candidate Cole J. Graham participated in a roundtable made up of comics scholars during Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) is an annual…
History of Art PhD Candidate Mia Kivel traveled to Japan this August to conduct research for her upcoming colloquium and dissertation (tentatively titled Anti-Aphasic Art in Contemporary Ainu…
PhD Student Michiko Kubota traveled to Japan from July through August to conduct research on postwar calligraphy. Supported by the Murnane Travel Scholarship, Start-up Departmental Research Funds,…
In June of 2025, PhD student Maika Kagawa Bahr was able to travel to Tokyo to conduct research for her dissertation. Supported by the Graduate Research Small Grants Program, Maika’s travelled to…
In May of 2025 PhD candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to the region around Lake Constance in Germany and Switzerland as well as Alsace, Germany and France to conduct research for her dissertation, …
PhD Candidate Asia Adomanis recently traveled to the University of Kansas to present at the Space Between Society 2025 Conference, “Peace and Conflict in the Space Between.” The presentation,…
From February through April, PhD candidate April Riddle served as the second Gallery and Exhibitions Visiting Fellow at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center. While in Hong Kong, April helped with…
In May 2025, PhD student Tony Del Aversano traveled to Europe to see exhibitions focusing on medieval Italian art. Supported by the Graduate Research Small Grants Program, and the Cathleen M…
Christy Sher, PhD candidate, recently visited the Wangensteen Historical Library at the University of Minnesota to conduct object-based research for her dissertation project examining the…
Graham conducted research for his forthcoming dissertation, tentatively titled Bodily Matters: Egon Schiele and the Erotics of Disability. While in…
In May 2025, graduate student Peter Smyth traveled to Paris to visit exhibitions of modern art, including the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée d’Art Moderne. Then, Peter continued on…
Prof. Karl Whittington and PhD student Tony del Aversano presented research at a symposium at the Clark Art Institute on Friday April 11, 2025. The symposium, “Queer Palimpsests: Rewriting…
In April 2025, PhD student Tony Del Aversano attended the 24th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, in Durham, North Carolina and co-hosted by Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill. There, he…
Margaret Wilson, PhD candidate, recently visited Nuremberg, Germany, in order to conduct object research to further her dissertation project “Making and Breaking Enclosure: The Movement of Art…
Over the spring break, 2025, PhD candidate Liz Rae Heise-Glass took a fruitful research trip to southern California. Liz’s visit took her from the high desert where she conducted a studio visit…
This spring, PhD Candidate Asia Adomanis visited the de Young Museum in San Francisco to view Tseng Yuho’s Western Frontier (1964). The multi-panel mural is the focus of Asia’s…
In February 2025, PhD Candidate Schuyler Black-Seitz attended the College Art Association’s 113th annual conference in New York City. At the conference, Schuyler participated on a panel titled
On February 13, PhD candidate Keyu Yan presented a paper titled “Beijing to Hangzhou: Maryn Varbanov and the Significance of Mixed Media in Post-Mao China” at the College Art Association Annual…
PhD Student Sterling Nix attended the exhibition, A Bold and Beautiful Vision: A Century of Black Arts Education in Washington D.C 1900-2000, at the Anacostia Community Museum in…
In November 2024, PhD candidate April Riddle traveled to Los Angeles to conduct dissertation research. At the Getty Research Institute, April spent time in the archives studying documents from the…
In November 2024, graduate student Peter Smyth traveled to Paris to visit the exhibition “Comics, 1964-2024” at the Centre Pompidou. The exhibition featured original comics pages and comics…
In September 2024, graduate student Asia Adomanis traveled to New York to attend the opening reception of the Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City (1969-2001)
PhD student Christy Sher immersed herself in a six-week Classical Japanese studies program in Kyoto, Japan in June and July 2024, preparing for her dissertation research. During her stay, Christy…
In August 2024, PhD candidate Schuyler Black-Seitz traveled to Washington, D.C. and Bard College in New York to conduct dissertation research. In D.C., Schuyler visited the Archives of American…
PhD student Tony Del Aversano received funding from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. to attend their weeklong skills course, “An Orientation to Research Methods and Agendas,” in…
In July 2024, PhD candidate Keyu Yan traveled to China to conduct dissertation research in Kunming, where he visited museums and collected materials. This trip was made possible by OSU’s…
PhD candidate Dareen Hussein spent time in France this summer conducting research for her dissertation. Dareen conducted archival research and interviews across Paris, Marseille, and Damgan. In…
PhD Candidate Karin Flora travelled to Lyon, France to present at the 36th Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art World Congress with the theme of “Matter, Materiality” which convened from June…
PhD candidate April Riddle received a travel fellowship from the National Committee for the History of Art to attend the 36th Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art World Congress in Lyon, France…
In July of 2024, PhD student Maika Kagawa Bahr was able to travel to Tokyo to conduct research for her dissertation. Supported by the Graduate Research Small Grants Program, Maika was able to…
This summer, PhD Candidate Emilela Thomas-Adams traveled to Switzerland and Germany to conduct research on several of her dissertation case study objects. While in Bern, Emilela met with curators…
PhD Candidate Allie Mickle spent three months in Hong Kong as the Gallery and Exhibitions Visiting Fellow at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center from March through May 2024. While there, she…
In June of 2024, PhD student Tony Del Aversano traveled to Italy to conduct research for his upcoming dissertation focusing on gender and sexuality in Italian medieval art. Supported by the…
In May of 2024 PhD Candidate Maggie Wilson visited several of her dissertation case study objects in Belgium and Germany thanks to the support of the ICMA Student Travel Grant. She had an enriching…
PhD student Michiko Kubota traveled to Chicago, IL in May to conduct research for her MA. She attended the Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan symposium and visited its corresponding…
In March 2024, PhD Candidate Liz Rae Heise-Glass attended the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) annual conference in Boston. At the conference, Liz was featured on a panel on the…
PhD Candidate Margaret Wilson presented a paper at the 2024 International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, the largest annual conference of medieval studies in the…
In May 2024, PhD candidate April Riddle traveled to New York City to conduct dissertation research. April visited the Museum of Modern Art to see the current installation of Michael Smith’s
In April 2024, PhD candidate Hannah Slater traveled to Chicago to attend the 50th Annual Midwest Art History Society conference. Hannah presented research from her dissertation on the artist…
In April, Keyu Yan traveled to Houston to conduct dissertation research. He visited the exhibition titled “Xu Bing: Word Alchemy” at the Asia Society Texas Center. Xu Bing is one of the key…
In February 2024, PhD candidate Karin Flora was able to travel to Italy to do research for her dissertation, “The Grisaille Image: Encounters Between Art and Matter.” In her time in Italy, she was…
In March 2024, PhD candidate Dareen Hussein traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, to attend the 2024 Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference. She presented her paper “Resurrecting the ‘Songs…
Over spring break, PhD student Peter Smyth traveled to NYC to see an important exhibition at the Met, “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism.” While there, they also visited the…
PhD Candidate Lauren Caskey recounts her recent trip to Chicago to conduct dissertation research:
"As I entered the Contemporary Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, I saw Alma Thomas’s …
PhD Candidate Allie Mickle presented her paper, "Aesthetic Kitsch as Global Commodity in Mika Rottenberg's Cosmic Generator" at this year's College Art Association conference in Chicago,…
In December 2023, PhD candidate Dareen Hussein traveled to France to conduct archival research for her dissertation. In Paris, she compiled research on the Mouvement des travailleurs arabes (Arab…
This winter, PhD student Asia Adomanis travelled to Hong Kong and Taipei to conduct dissertation research. Asia spent time studying library and archival materials related to the artists Tseng Yuho…
PhD Candidate Asia Adomanis recently traveled to Manchester, England to present at the University of Manchester’s Understanding Displacement in Visual Art and Cultural History: 1945 to Now…
This October, PhD. Student Sterling Nix traveled to London to attend the 1-54ArtFair for Contemporary African Art. He focused on how artists incorporate issues of identity and migration into their…
PhD Student Cole J. Graham traveled to Lawrence, Kansas last weekend for Distance and the In-Between, the 2023 graduate symposium held by the Kress Foundation Department…
PhD Student Cole J. Graham traveled to Chicago this past week, October 6th-8th, where he attended the Midwest Popular Culture Association's annual conference. While there, he presented a section…
In August, Ph.D. candidate Emilela Thomas-Adams traveled to Europe to conduct research for her dissertation in which she explores medieval practices of reuse and recycling in religious contexts…
This October, PhD Candidate Lauren M. Caskey traveled to Washington D.C. to see Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Thomas is the…
This August, PhD student Sterling Nix traveled to Accra, Ghana to conduct research for his upcoming MA Thesis. Sterling’s primary focus was to attend the Chale Wote Street Arts Festival in its…
In July 2023, PhD student Schuyler Black-Seitz traveled to Europe to conduct dissertation research. Schuyler’s primary focus in Paris, Rome, Vienna, Prague, and Berlin was an exploration of…
PhD student April Riddle traveled to Europe this summer to conduct dissertation research. April’s primary focus on this trip was visiting two exhibitions that examine the concept of worldbuilding:…
In June and July 2023, PhD candidate Yifan Li traveled to China to conduct dissertation research in Hong Kong, Nanjing, and Beijing, where he visited museums, explored sites, collected materials,…
In June 2023, PhD Candidate Dareen Hussein traveled to France to conduct research for her dissertation, in which she explores connections between the history of militant cinema and the…
With the support of the Murnane Travel Grant and the Arts and Sciences Graduate Research Small Grant, PhD candidate Maggie Wilson traveled to Europe this summer to conduct research on several of…
In May 2023, Hannah Slater traveled to Japan to conduct research for her forthcoming dissertation that examines how contemporary artists in Japan have responded to the 2011 Great East Japan…
In May 2023, PhD Candidate Allie Mickle traveled to Hong Kong to conduct research in support of her dissertation project at the Asia Art Archive (AAA), a library and collection of modern and…
In May 2023, Ph. D. Student Mia Kivel traveled to Japan to conduct research in support of her upcoming MA Thesis and eventual dissertation. Mia's research focuses on the modern and contemporary…
In May 2023, PhD candidate Liz Heise-Glass traveled to the east coast to attend performance events and conduct archival research in support of her upcoming dissertation. Invested in the crossovers…
PhD Candidate Asia Adomanis recently traveled to Syracuse University to conduct dissertation research on prints by Chinese American artist Seong Moy. While there, Asia worked with staff at the SU…
In April 2023, Ph.D. student Sophie Richard presented her paper “‘My Fields Were Planted’: Liminal Topography in Drawings by Nina Otero-Warren” at Rice University’s 2023 Graduate Student…
Emilela Thomas-Adams
In March 2023, PhD student Emilela Thomas-Adams presented a paper entitled, “Material Memory: Imitation and Reuse in Florentine Convents” at the 22nd Annual Vagantes…
In March 2023, three PhD students took part in the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annual conference in Boston. While in Boston, Students and faculty were able to tour the Chinese galleries at…
On March 9, 2023, Karin Flora travelled to the Renaissance Society of America conference held in San Juan, Puerto Rico and presented her research paper, “Roman Goddess and Mary: Clashing…
In late February, PhD candidate Yifan Li traveled to Los Angeles to view the exhibition “(De)constructing Ideology: The Cultural Revolution and Beyond” at Wende Museum of the Cold War, where he…
On March 2, PhD student Peter Smyth presented a paper entitled “Miraculous Kitsch: Comics, Painting, and the Modernist Anticipation of Novelty” at the 2023 International Conference on…
On February 16, PhD student Maika Kagawa Bahr presented a paper entitled “Savoring Toxicity: Culinary Nationalism and Wax Food Models from Japan’s Interwar Period” at the College Art Association…
On February 15, PhD Candidate Yifan Li presented a paper entitled “Staging Chinese Visual Modernity: Zhang Shuqi’s Painting Demonstrations in the United States, 1941–1946” at the College Art…
With the support of an Aida Cannarsa Snow Endowment award, PhD student Schuyler Black-Seitz traveled to Washington, DC to conduct dissertation research on New Deal murals. His focus for…
With the support of a Graduate Research Small Grant, PhD student Schuyler Black-Seitz traveled to New York City to conduct dissertation research on New Deal murals. His focus for this trip was on…
In early October, Lauren Caskey traveled to Bentonville, AR to participate in Crystal Bridges's Tyson Scholars Ten Year Reunion and the Association of Historians of American Art Biennial Symposium…
Ph.D. student Christy Sher traveled to Philadelphia to conduct research on the Arthur Tress Collection of Japanese Illustrated Books and Prints at the University of Pennsylvania. She visited the…
With support from the Aida Cannarsa Snow Endowment, PhD Candidate Allie Mickle traveled to New York City to complete dissertation research on artist Mika Rottenberg, attending the New York Film…
Over fall break, PhD student Sophie Richard visited the New Mexico State Archives to review historic family records and drawings by Gilded Age activist, Nina Otero-Warren, whose legacy was…
In September 2022, PhD student Asia Adomanis travelled to the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KA to present a paper entitled “Surface, Text, and Racial (Il)legibility in the Prints of Seong Moy …
During the last few weeks of August 2022, PhD student Emilela Thomas-Adams traveled to Germany and the Netherlands to conduct preliminary dissertation research and attend a textile course. Emilela…
In September 2022, Lauren traveled to Georgia to view Everything Is Beautiful at the Columbus Museum. The exhibition featured Alma W. Thomas, an American abstract painter. Thomas is the…
On Saturday, September 11, PhD student Cole J. Graham presented the paper "Monstrous Possibilities: States of Racial Transmutation in Hiromu Arakawa's FullMetal Alchemist" at the third…
In August 2022, graduate students Yifan Li and Keyu Yan and PhD Alumna Effie Yin (2019) joined the Mellon Chinese Object Study Workshop Convening at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington…
In July and August 2022, PhD student Dareen Hussein attended the Sijal Institute for Arabic Language and Culture in Amman, Jordan, where she took an immersive Arabic language course, and a class…
Gillian Zhang attended the Getty-Heidelberg Dissertation Workshop (Part II) this past July. Her presentation “Stone Painting: Ruan Yuan’s Evening Glow on the Autumn Mountain” focuses on a…
April Riddle traveled to Iceland, Italy, Germany, and Spain during the month of July to conduct pre-dissertation research. With support from the History of Art Department, she visited the 59th…
With support from the OSU History of Art Department, PhD student Cole J. Graham spent a week in Austria this July exploring the Egon Schiele Documentation Center at the Leopold Museum and Oskar…
PhD Student Maika Kagawa Bahr traveled to Japan during the month of July to conduct research for several papers and her dissertation. With support from History of Art Department and the The…
Gillian Yanzhuang Zhang traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art during Summer 2022 to conduct research on her dissertation “From Paper to Stone: Chinese Painting and Its Medium in High Qing China…
Maggie Wilson traveled to Germany and Belgium during the month of June to conduct pre-dissertation research. With support from History of Art, the Nicholas G. Howe Memorial Fund and the College of…
PhD Candidate Karin Flora traveled this June to London, Paris, and several cities in Italy with Ohio State's Pyne and Murnane Research Grant. This trip funded her art historical dissertation work…
PhD student Keyu Yan participated in the Mellon Chinese Object Study Workshop at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). Running from June 20 to 24, 2022, the workshop revolved around the theme of…
On June 9, PhD student Dareen Hussein presented the paper “Activating the Archive: Cinema of the Palestinian Revolution in Twenty-First Century film and Video,” at the 2e colloque international de…
In May of 2022 Schuyler Black-Seitz received Cathleen M. Murnane Travel Scholarship funds to visit the home and collections of Jon Quirt outside Santa Barbara, California. Jon, the youngest son of…
In June 2022, PhD student Asia Adomanis traveled to the Smithsonian Institute's Archives of American Art in Washington, DC in order to conduct dissertation research on the artist Seong Moy. While…
Allie Mickle traveled to Rome and Venice, Italy to complete research for her dissertation. In Rome, she visited a solo exhibition of Cao Fei's work SUPERNOVA at the MAXXI Museum,…