Graduate Students
Travis Nygard
Modern/Contemporary
Nygard is interested in modern visual culture, the history of food, and pre-Columbian civilization. His dissertation focuses on the visual culture of American agribusiness during the first half of the 20th century. The project includes some of the most celebrated art of the United States, such as the Farm Security Administration photographs and murals by Grant Wood. It also includes lesser-known material, such as cartoons produced for the radical farmers' movement Nonpartisan League by John Miller Baer—the only professional cartoonist to have ever served in the US Congress. His interest in agricultural history began as an undergraduate and continued in graduate school with an MA paper on the mosaic panels made from grain which adorned the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, during the Cold War.
He has also studied sculpture and inscriptions at the Maya site Yo'okop in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Portions of this work were published by the University of Arizona Press, as well as in the 2001 Yo'okop field report. Although Yo'okop has been little studied, it was occupied for millennia and it boasted grand architecture. (The tallest pyramid at Yo'okop is 2 meters shorter than the Castillo at Chichén Itzá.) He has also combined his interests in modern and ancient cultures by looking at how the Maya have been perceived since the conquest of Mexico.
Education
2005-present PhD Program. History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh. Working dissertation title: "The Art of Agribusiness: How Visual Culture Shaped Grain Production in the US, 1893-1943"
2007 PhD Certificate. Cultural Studies. University of Pittsburgh.
2005 MA. History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh. MA paper title: “Oscar Howe and the Metaphorical Monarchy of Maize: Indigenism and Power in the Mitchell Corn Palace Panels, 1948-1971”
Academic Publications
Wren, Linnea and Travis Nygard. “Witnessed at Yo’okop: Images and Texts of Rulers in a Watery Realm.” In Quintana Roo Archaeology, edited by Justine Shaw and Jennifer Mathews. University of Arizona Press, 2005.
Wren, Linnea, Travis Nygard, and Ruth Krochock. “Monuments of Yo’okop.” In Final Report of The Selz Foundation’s Proyecto Arqueológico Yo’okop 2001 Field Season: Excavations and Continued Mapping, edited by Justine M. Shaw, 80-104. Eureka: College of the Redwoods, 2001.
Encyclopedic Entries
Nygard, Travis and Alec Sonsteby. “Castration.” Encyclopedic entry in The Cultural Encyclopedia of the Body, edited by Victoria Pitts. Greenwood Press, forthcoming.
Nygard, Travis. “Visual Arts, Civil War, and the West.” Encyclopedic entry in Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the Homefront, edited by John P. Resch, Volume 2, 181-183. Detroit, Macmillan Reference, 2005.
Wren, Linnea and Travis Nygard. “Heinrich Wölfflin.” Encyclopedic entry in Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century, edited by Chris Murray, 275-280. London: Routledge, 2002.
Select Presentations
Nygard, Travis and Linnea Wren. The Ritual Space of Yo'okop's Queen Ch'ak Kab: Inscriptions, Sculpture, and Architecture of a Lesser-Known Maya City. The 41st Annual Chacmool Conference, University of Calgary. To be presented November 7-11, 2008.
Nygard, Travis. The Business of Ethnography: Oscar Howe's Early Mosaics for the Corn Palace. The 21st Joint Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (AFHVS). New Orleans, Louisiana, June 6, 2008.
Nygard, Travis. "Classy Control and Cartography: Who Liked Beautiful Maps in Early Modern Japan?" Thirty-fourth Annual Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies Conference. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 28-30, 2005.
Nygard, Travis. "Oscar Howe and the Visual Politics of Agriculture: A Corn-Textual Analysis." Art History and Visual Culture session of the joint Midwest Popular Culture Association and Midwest American Culture Association Conference. Cleveland, Ohio, October 8-10. An expanded version of this paper was presented in the Frick Fine Arts Colloquium Series, University of Pittsburgh, 2004.
Nygard, Travis and Alec Sonsteby. "Blasphemy and Blessedness in Modern American Comics: Visual Theology in the Tijuana Bibles." International Comic Arts Festival. Bethesda, Maryland, September 30–October 2, 2004.
Nygard, Travis and Jessica Glaser. "Lustful Language and Deadly Deeds: Jenny Holzer's Lustmord and Feminist Discourse." Northeastern Modern Language Association Conference. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 4-6, 2004.
Wren, Linnea, Kaylee Spencer, Travis Nygard, and Nayla Wren. "Sensibility and the Colonial Image of the Americas." Annual Nineteenth Century Studies Association Conference. St. Louis, Missouri, March 11-13, 2004.
Nygard, Travis. "Modern Manipulation of a Maya Monument: Depictions of Pakal’s Oval Tablet at Palenque." Southeastern College Art Conference. Raleigh, North Carolina, October 29-November 1, 2003.
Wren, Linnea and Travis Nygard. "Splashes and Spaces: Maya Cultural Constructions at Yo'okop, Quintana Roo, Mexico." Society for American Archaeology Annual Meetings. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 9-13, 2003.
———. "Monumental Sculpture at Yo’okop: Ecology and Cosmology of a pre-Columbian Maya City." Southeastern College Art Conference. Mobile, Alabama, October 23-26, 2002.
———. "Carved Monuments at Yo’okop: Fragmentary Images in a Frontier Zone." Society for American Archaeology Annual Meetings. Denver, Colorado, March 20-24, 2002.
Wren, Linnea, Travis Nygard and Madeline Rislow. "Maya Cross Imagery." Poster presentation. Chicano, Mexicano, and Latino Conference. Minnesota State University, Mankato. Now displayed as part of the Oral History Project of the Blue Earth County Historical Society, Mankato, Minnesota, 2002.
Arts and Research Experience
Graduate Research Assistant. History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, Summer 2008, Fall 2007, and Summer 2004.
Gallery Assistant. University Art Gallery, University of Pittsburgh, Spring 2006.
Archaeological Crew Member. Proyecto Arqueologico Yo'okop, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Summer 2001.
Exhibitions
Curator of Malvina and Mortality. University Art Gallery and the Frick Fine Arts Library, University of Pittsburgh. April 5-August 12, 2006. Exhibition on death in the work of the American artist Malvina Hoffman.
Co-Curator of Small Objects, Big Differences: Art for AIDS Support. Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minnesota. March 1-2, 2002. This exhibition and auction included original works of art from contemporary artists and celebrities of international repute such as Marisol, Audrey Flack, and Fred Rogers; Gustavus faculty and administrators; and local children.
Teaching Experience
Visiting Instructor. Art and Art History, Gustavus Adolphus College, Spring 2008. Courses: Maya Temples, Tombs, and Texts; Gender and Art; Maya and Mexican Art and Archaeology.
Teaching Fellow. History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, 2005-2007. Courses taught: Frank Lloyd Wright, Introduction to Modern Art, Introduction to Art, Modern Art Writing Practicum.
Teaching Assistant. History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, 2004–2005. Courses assisted: Introduction to Contemporary Art, Introduction to Modern Art, American Art.
Fellowships and Grants
Cultural Studies Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2008-2009.
Faculty and College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2003-2004
Presidential Faculty/Student Collaboration and Publication Grant, Gustavus Adolphus College, Summer 2001.