Smith Publishes in Curator
In March, Deirdre Smith's article, "A Wider View: Amie Siegel's Panorama and the Role of Contemporary Art in Natural History Museum Critique and Practice" was published in the journal Curator. The article is a "Reflective Analysis" inspired by Amie Siegel's 2023 artist's film and Forum Gallery installation at Carnegie Museum of Art, which drew on archival footage shot by Carnegie Museum of Natural History employees during expeditions and diorama construction projects in the 1930s-1970s.
Serrato Doyen Awarded 2026 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art
Graduate student Kale Serrato Doyen has been awarded a 2026 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art. The program is made possible by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and administered by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).
Smith Featured in Annual Report on Research at Pitt
Teaching Assistant Professor Deirdre Smith was profiled in the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research's Annual Report
Bertagnolli Guest Lectures at Schweikher House
Isaiah Bertagnolli (Ph.D. 2025) to give a guest lecture entitled "Synapse: Martyl's Intersection of Art and Science" on February 20, 2026 on artist Martyl Langsdorf, designer of the Doomsday Clock, at her historical home and museum, the Schweikher House. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Martyl--whose husband was a Manhattan Project physicist--began exploring the overlaps between computer circuitry and the human nervous system through her artwork.
Tao and Colleagues Publish on a 400-year-old Chinese Chicken Coop
Tao and his colleagues published an article on a very rare 17th-century late Ming Dynasty chicken coop discovered during an archaeological excavation in Zhengzhou, China. Its structure is consistent with historical records, providing empirical evidence for the study of chicken raising techniques and urban life.
Nygren publishes co-authored piece on AI in Higher Ed
AI has upended Higher Ed in the last two years. Often lost in the hype around AI are the fundamental questions: what does learning look like and how does it happen. Christopher Nygren and Sonja Drimmer offer a response:
Roberts and Trakumas Win Inaugural Terry Smith Prize
The Department of History of Art & Architecture is pleased to announce graduate student Emma Roberts and undergraduate student Tadas Trakumas as the inaugural winners of the Terry Smith Prize for Research on Modern and/or Contemporary Art, Architecture, and Visual Culture. Endowed by Professor Emeritus Terry Smith upon his retirement in 2022, the Terry Smith Prize recognizes outstanding student scholarship completed as part of coursework.
Dong receives tenure at Peking University
Lihui Dong (PhD 2017), Associate Professor and Researcher at the School of Arts Peking University, has received tenure in the Department of Art Theory. Dong completed her dissertation, "The way to be modern: Empress Dowager Cixi's portraits of the late Qing Dynasty", under Professor Emeritus Minglu Gao.
Read Lihui Dong's faculty profile at the School of Arts Peking University: https://www.art.pku.edu.cn//szdw/qzjs/ysllx/dlh/index.htm
Nakhaei Joins Shangri La Museum as Fall 2025 Scholar-in-Residence
Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, a center of the Doris Duke Foundation, welcomes architectural historian and PhD candidate Hossein Nakhaei as its Fall 2025 Scholar-in-Residence. During the residency, Nakhaei advances his research on 13th-14th-century Persian luster tiles at the Shangri La’s collection, including the luster mihrab from the Emamzadeh Yahya in Varamin, Iran. He explores how architectural elemenets of sacred spaces were fragmented and reassembled in museum contexts.
A Winter Update from the Chair
Dear HAA Community,
As we head toward winter break, I want to reach out and give you an update on the many exciting things happening in HAA this academic year.
Nakhaei Talks About Fragmentation of Luster Tiles at University of Hawai'i
Hossein Nakhaei delivers a talk at the University of Hawai'i at Mānao entitled "Every piece you see is a fragment: Persian luster tiles from architectural elements to museum objects." In this talk, he explores fragmentation on three interrelated levels: material fragmentation—the physical breakage caused during their removal and through their subsequent circulation among dealers and collectors; compositional fragmentation—the separation of tiles from their original ensembles; and contextual fragmentation—the removal of those
Nakhaei Co-Authors Detailed Historiography of Persian Luster Mihrab in Hawai'i
PhD Student Hossein Nakhaei and art historian Dr. Keelan Overton publish a comprehensive historiography of a luster mihrab entitled “From Varamin to Honolulu: The Displacement, Commodification, and Aestheticization of the Emamzadeh Yahya’s Luster Mihrab, 1863–2025.” This essay traces the extraordinary journey of one of Iran’s most important luster tile ensembles, from its sacred space in the Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin to its current display in the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design in Honolulu.
Nakhaei Receives 2025 Graduate Student Presentation Award
Hossein Nakhaei receives Khamseen’s Graduate Student Presentation Award for his talk entitled “A Composite of Fragments: Removal, Displacement, and Illusion in Museum Displays of Persian Luster Tiles.” This award enables advanced PhD students to feature their expertise and contribute a talk to Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online. Nakhaei’s talk will be released in 2026 as part of Khamseen’s new feature, Concept, in which his contribution focuses on the theme of Fragmentation.
Donnelly publishes chapter on slavery, resistance, and the architectural legacy of Cuba's sugar plantations
Jennifer Donnelly publishes a chapter in Architectures of Slavery: Ruins and Reconstructions, the inaugural volume in the University of Virginia Press' series Race, Place, and Justice and edited by Nathaniel Robert Walker and Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann. Over fifty nineteenth-century sugar plantations, or ingenios, decay in various states of ruin in the the tropical valleys of the Valle de los Ingenios on the southern cost of Cuba. The region was once a global center for the production of sugar.
Bai and McCoy present on transcultural exchange in Eastern Eurasian religious art at MARAAS
HAA graduate student Mengtian Bai (presenter) and faculty member Micki McCoy (discussant) jointly participated in the panel, "Negotiating Foreignness: Rethinking Religious Art within and beyond East Asia, 12th-17th Centuries," at the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies which was held this year at Pitt.
Read Mengtian Bai's student profile here: https://www.haa.pitt.edu/people/mengtian-bai