Watch Tiampo discuss the children experience of the Gutai exhibition.     

Michael Windover is the newest faculty addition to the History and Theory of Architecture Program.

Windover, who arrived at Carleton in the fall of 2012, is a historian of modern architecture, design and material culture.  His research focuses on the cultural production referred to as ‘Art Deco’ during the years between the First and Second World Wars.  Though the dissemination of interwar architectural ideas is the hub of his study, Windover has analyzed the social and political consequences of everything from NHL hockey arenas, to the impact and implications of the cosmopolitan design of super cinemas.  He has a special interest in the intersection of media and architecture – two subjects, as Windover explains, that are deeply intertwined.

“Architecture is not only a mass medium in itself but inherently a multi-mediated practice; any study of architecture involves a consideration of representations of architecture in different media forms. In the past I have looked at how architectural and design ideas were disseminated through film or print media and have looked at how architecture as a mass medium framed the experience of other media, as in the case of cinema design.”

Windover is currently engaged in a project which investigates the visual and material culture of radio systems in Canada from 1920 to the 1950’s, and how the materiality of this medium affected, and created publics – communities of people who have an indirect or direct relationship and association with an external outlet (in this case, media).  Specifically, he is examining some of the visual and material aspects of radio culture, and the place of archietecture in the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

From Canada to India, from 1400 to the present, Windover’s expertise covers an enormous amount of ground.  He believes that by understanding the past and the present of Art Deco, we call attain a better understanding of ourselves.

“Art Deco burgeoned in the context of consumer culture of the 1920s and 1930s. And for some later cultural critics, like Baudrillard and Debord, our current cultural formation was predicated on this moment. If consumerism can survive the Great Depression, so the logic goes, it is truly a deeply engrained belief system. So Art Deco, this popular, user-friendly modern production continues to have some resonance today (and indeed it was on the catwalks of New York earlier this year).What I’ve tried to show in my work on Art Deco is that this style – for it is about the self-conscious presentation of modernity, or modern style – can be envisaged as a kind of crossroads: a site of cosmopolitan cultural and economic flow and mixture that indicates fashionableness yet, ultimately, social conservatism. In terms of Canada, Art Deco marked the everyday landscape from local cinemas and gas stations, for instance, to high-end department stores. Spaces like the 9^th floor restaurant or 7^th floor tea room and auditorium in Eaton’s department stores in Montreal and Toronto respectively are illustrative of imaginative potential of Art Deco, framing the experience of shopping as a cosmopolitan adventure, allowing a chance for Depression-weary Canadians to perform a glamorous lifestyle as seen in Hollywood movies or experienced by the elites travelling on luxurious French ocean liners. These spaces not only reinforced notions of modern design in an experiential manner, incorporating a synthesis of European and North American influences into an everyday Canadian urban context, but reinforced the tenets and values of consumer culture rather than, say, the social democratic values held by some proponents of the Modern Movement.”

An understanding of how influential and telling our manufactured and designed surroundings can be is a comprehension that Windover hopes to relay to his students.

“I hope my students come away from my classes with a strong sense of how the designed environment affects us in our everyday life. I hope they learn to be critical of the places they encounter and develop a stronger sense of awareness and attentiveness, which is no small feat these days! I also hope that students become inspired to learn more about how ideas develop and to be aware of how significant a historical understanding of cultural production continues to be today.”

For now, Windover is enjoying the moment.  Energized to be a faculty member at Carleton University, he sees the HTA program as an ideal setting for his research.  More importantly, he has the sense that Ottawa will be a wonderful setting for his family.

“This position offers an incredible opportunity to work in a dynamic yet supportive scholarly community. I’m particularly excited about the opportunity to contribute to the unique History and Theory of Architecture program in the School for Studies in Art and Culture. I am delighted to have a space to develop new research and share ideas in such a collegial environment. And Ottawa seems like a pretty great place for my daughter, Audrey, to grow up, too!”

The discussion will begin with an informal walk-through of the exhibition. Moderator Diana Nemiroff will then pose questions to the panelists on such topics as the emergence of photomontage as an artistic medium, the importance of photomontage in politics, social protest, advertising, and the marketplace, and the intersection of photomontage and film.

Photomontage Between the Wars (1918-1939) surveys the birth of the photomontage process as it developed in Germany and the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The exhibition is drawn from the Merrill C. Berman Collection in the United States, and features over 100 posters, books, magazines, and postcards by artists and graphic designers from 13 countries. The exhibition features the work of such iconic artists and designers as John Heartfield, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Jan Tschichold, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Paul Schuitema, and George Grosz. Berman’s world-class collection of graphic design and modernist art is considered equal to that of the Museum of Modern Art’s in New York.

Adrian Sudhalter is an art historian and curator with expertise in German art of the early twentieth century. Sudhalter was a member of the curatorial team for the exhibition Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, presented at MoMA in New York (2009), and contributed numerous essays to the accompanying catalogue. She also curated Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, New York, Paris, presented at MoMA in 2006, and Before Expressionism: Art in Germany circa 1903, presented at the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University (2003). Dr. Sudhalter is co-editor of and contributor to Dada in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, published by MoMA in 2008.

Jennifer Evans is Associate Professor of German History at Carleton University with interests in the history of sexuality and visual culture. She has written about queer history and photography, and has recently published Life Among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). She is the primary investigator on the Hate 2.0 project, which explores social media as a form of digital activism, and is co-editing Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Europe Since 1945 due out with Continuum UK in 2013. She is developing a new project that examines the role of erotic photography as a claim to desire, personhood, and sexual freedom during the Sexual Revolution.

This event is supported in part by the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa.

Ruth Phillips

Professor of Art History, Ruth Phillips, has been nominated for a 2012 Ottawa Book Award in the non-fiction category for her book Museum Pieces.

Phillips, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture, was honoured to receive the prestigious nomination.

“It was an unexpected and welcomed nomination,” explains Phillips.  “For me, the nomination is evidence that the book’s impact goes beyond the academic and museum audience.”

Museum Pieces is the culmination of years of research.  About half of the essays included in the book were published at different moments in Phillips’ career, and many were written in response to specific controversies.  The other half of the essays function as an assessment of the 21st century landscape of Indigenous representation in Canadian museums.  In Museum Pieces, Phillips reviews the development of collaborative models for work with Aboriginal people over the last three decades to provide a more accurate reflection of Indigenous culture.

“There has been significant progress in the ways Aboriginal people and museums have worked together.  The models that we have developed now extend beyond the Indigenous population to representations of other cultures.  Museums are now better equipped to handle our diversity,” says Phillips.

Fundamentally, Museum Pieces challenges readers to think about museum politics and the role they play in Canadian society.  Concurrently, the book highlights Canada’s achievement in making modern museums a more powerful and authentic place.

Phillips believes that working at Carleton University has played a major role in facilitating her many research successes.

“Carleton is ideally situated to address national concerns and museum issues.  The recent recognitions received by members of the Carleton arts community confirm that Carleton’s role in training students in museology is becoming more prominent and professionalized.”

Currently, Phillips is working on a book on visual culture in the Great Lakes across the four centuries of contact and is developing a new project that places modern First Nations and Inuit arts in comparative global perspective. Museum Pieces also recently made the shortlist for the 2012 Donner Prize, which has been awarded annually since 1998 to recognize excellence and innovation in public policy writing in Canada.

More on the Ottawa Book Awards, and Museum Pieces here.

An exceptionally accomplished historian, this is not Phillips first time as a visiting scholar at a prestigious institution.  Harvard, Yale, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and King’s College Cambridge are amongst the many schools that have played host to him in the past. Yet Phillips says this Fellowship at CASVA holds extra significance.

This opportunity presents him with a new challenge.  His research will take place in a demanding field that is novel to Phillips– Art History.  Though this is not the first time his studies have shifted to a new arena, the opportunity to work at CASVA seems particularly challenging.

“I have great respect for art historical scholarship,” Phillips says, “and I need to learn as much as I can from their research. Still, my own work on historical representation suggests some new questions.”

During his distinguished career Phillips’s work has focused on historical thought, first in the Italian Renaissance and more recently on 18th century Britain.  His latest book, On Historical Distance, forthcoming from Yale University Press, is a theoretical and historical study of a fundamental idea in historical representation.

Drawing upon his analysis of distance, Phillips’s new work examines history painting, understood by 18th and 19th century critics as the highest artistic genre. His work aims to broaden our understanding of this important genre, in part through comparisons with historical writing.

Phillips says that he regards the fellowship as a very welcome affirmation of his art historical interests. CASVA is a leading art historical center, with all the resources of the National Gallery in Washington at hand.
According to Phillips, all this would not be possible if he had been the recipient of a 2012 FASS Research Achievement Award.

“Thanks to the FASS Research Award, I was able to free up the time necessary to pursue this endeavour.”

Benjamin West: The Death of General Wolfe
An iconic painting which exemplifies Phillips research on the contradictory definitions of the art genre ‘history’. Also, one of Phillips favourite pieces of art.

Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts

Grant visits the Empire State Bulding

It has been a productive past few months for Hilary Grant.  Not only has the graduating History and Theory of Architecture (HTA) student won the Martin Eli Weil Prize for best architectural history essay in Canada – a notable Carleton first, she has also been awarded a University Medal at the undergraduate level as the graduating student with the highest standing throughout several programs and departments.

These accolades are a momentous feat for a number of reasons.

For starters, the Martin Eli Weil Prize has a history of exclusively being awarded to graduate students.  To even be considered for it as an undergraduate is practically unheard of.  This Prize, which rewards excellence in a single research project and discipline, is measured against the research of students and peers at all levels from all across Canada.

The outstanding essay that Grant penned to earn the Martin Eli Weil Prize delved into the history of a local site – The former Crawley building located at 119 Scott Road in Gatineau Park.

Crawley Building

While working for the National Capital Commission, Grant came to the realization that very little was known about the Crawly Building site. Intrigued by its ambiguity, she began researching her way to unlocking the secrets of the mysterious buildings past.

“Since the History and Theory Program has so many opportunities for independent research, I was lucky enough to be able to indulge my curiosity and explore the site as part of a Directed Studies course,” explains Grant.  “The resulting paper pivoted on the idea that the work of Budge Crawley, the founder of Crawley Films and the studio’s original owner, and the will to create and later expand Gatineau Park, both express a view of nature, and in particular ‘wilderness,’ as essential to Canadian identity.”

In a complimentary contrast to the Martin Eli Weil Prize, Grant’s University Medal is an acknowledgement of distinction across multiple disciplines and projects, confined to the parameters of Carleton University.  In earning both of these awards, Grant has essentially managed to cover all the bases of academic recognition.

Albeit, from start to finish her time at Carleton has been an overwhelmingly successful endeavor, a modest Grant was still surprised to find out she had been awarded the University Medal.

“I was honestly shocked when I found out I won the University Medal.  I was at the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Conference the weekend that the Senate approved the degrees to be awarded this spring, so I didn’t get the email confirming I would be convocating until Sunday. There was a link to an information page and I saw that the medals had been posted. I thought I would check to see if anyone I knew had won, and there I was!  I was so surprised I actually called the Registrar’s Office the next morning to make sure there wasn’t another Hilary Grant.”

Looking back, Grant credits much of her academic success to a decision she made four years ago. After two years of taking Music BA at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Grant decided that the program was not for her.  In search of something more bracing and self fulfilling, she made the decision to study a subject she had been interested in all of her life – heritage and architectural history.  She discovered Carleton’s History and Theory of Architecture program: A program that explores the history, forms and meanings of the built environment from prehistory to the present day. At the centre of the curriculum is a group of Art History courses that focus on a wide range of architectural topics.  Layered onto those are complementary courses in History, Architecture, Canadian Studies, Geography, and other complementary disciplines.

This richly textured and multi-disciplinary program offered an aspect of personal accommodation that was very appealing to Grant.

“I was really intrigued by the flexibility, the ability to do independent research and the multi-disciplinary approach, having to take courses from both the School for Studies in Arts and Culture and the School of Architecture. I came to Carleton and I never looked back.”

“In every class there was something new, and the more I studied and the more challenging the courses, the easier it seemed to become. Between work placements through the practicum program, doing my independent honors essay and the opportunity to take graduate level courses, I felt like I was dictating my path and in control of my education. Professors became partners and I no longer saw Carleton as an institution but a facilitator of my individual development. In the History and Theory of Architecture program I found a place where learning and pursuing your own interests was valued above traditional success.”

By taking her time, and finding a program that correlated with both her interests and learning style, Grant insured that she was on the proper path to achieve great things.  Grant, who cites the HTA faculty as being absolutely instrumental in her success, puts a special emphasis on the role played by her supervisor and professor of Art History, Peter Coffman.  Described as a challenging and selfless educator, Coffman functioned as a mentor to Grant by helping her set and reach the goals she most wanted for herself.

Though some of her awards and accolades may have come as a surprise to Grant, Coffman was less shocked.  Throughout her tenure in HTA, Coffman always recognized Grant as an extraordinary scholar; a student whose achievements could give a bit more ballast to HTA as a demonstration of how the program can help facilitate grand student triumphs.

“This really feels like a singular watershed for us.  A number of us have been working immensely hard to grow the HTA program over the last couple of years; we’ve overhauled the curriculum and are about to expand it again, we have a new hire beginning this summer, we are planning a wide and exciting range of new programming next year along with a fistful of new courses,” says Coffman.  “And at just the right moment, along comes Hilary to remind us of why we do this, and of just what is possible when you provide great students with the right environment. It’s a tremendous thing for Hilary, but the boost it gives to everyone who has been working so hard on the program (which includes a lot of people from Art History) is truly wonderful.”

Having now completed her undergraduate degree in HTA and leaving an enduring mark on the program, Grant plans to take some well deserved time off to travel and witness first hand many of the sites that she has spent the last four years studying.  She will begin her Masters in Heritage and Museums at Cambridge University in the fall, and has every intention of pursuing a PhD.

Coffman is thankful for her contribution, and of course, wishes her all the best in her future ventures.

“For all of us and all those to come in the HTA program, Hilary has raised our notion of what is possible. That is an incredible gift to give us as she graduates. Can you tell I’m kind of proud of her?”

For more information on the History and Theory of Architecture Program: http://admissions.carleton.ca/programs/history-and-theory-of-architecture

Ruth Phillips has made a short list of four for the Donner Prize. Phillips, an art history professor, is also the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture.

The Donner Prize has been awarded annually since 1998 to recognize excellence and innovation in public policy writing in Canada. . The Donner Canadian Foundation seeks to broaden policy debates, increase general awareness of the importance of policy decision-making, and make an original and meaningful contribution to policy discourse.

Museum Pieces: Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums by Ruth B. Phillips (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Museum Pieces asks readers to think about the role museums play in Canadian society. It examines the past 30 years and sheds light on the great change that has occurred within our museums to better reflect our pluralist society through better collaboration with Aboriginal groups and others.

“I wrote this book for two reasons –because the history of confrontation, negotiation and innovation that has occurred is in danger of being taken for granted or even forgotten,” said Phillips. “I also think what we have evolved is a major Canadian contribution and deserves to be celebrated. Our approaches are acknowledged and copied internationally.”

“I’m tremendously honoured by being shortlisted, and I hope that it will help the book gain a wider readership and thus create a greater awareness of what Canadian museums have achieved.”

Phillips wasn’t the only Carleton faculty member to be shortlisted for the prize.  Christopher Worswick, a professor in the Department of Economics also made the list

The 2011/2012 shortlisted titles were chosen from a field of 58 submissions. The winner will receive $50,000, with $7,500 awarded to the other nominated titles.

The winner of this year’s Donner Prize will be announced at an awards ceremony in Toronto on Tuesday, May 1, 2012. The ceremony will be hosted by Don Newman, chairman of Canada 2020.

By Hannah Yakobi

It’s a collaboration unlike any other – three talented researchers who are bringing together specialists from varied sectors and fields of study, uniting them all in transnational cultural analysis.

It all began in 2005, when Sarah Casteel, Ming Tiampo and Catherine Khordoc decided to form the Centre for Transnational Cultural Analysis at Carleton. The trios were all assistant professors at the time and had diverse backgrounds: Casteel was a professor in the Department of English, Khordoc in the Department of French and Tiampo in the Department of Art History.

“It emerged out of our friendship when we all arrived at Carleton in 2003,” says Tiampo. “We discovered that we had really important overlaps in our research interests and also very similar concerns about our own disciplines.”

Since then, the Centre has flourished. Its main focus is to organize conferences and seminars and build networks for researchers.

“We enable communication between projects and let others know what their colleagues are working on, because it’s not always obvious even in your own institution whose research is potentially in dialogue with your own,” says Tiampo. “We also try to reach out to researchers in other parts of the world – for example, we have a relationship with the Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry and the Université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour, in the south of France.”

“The Centre brings attention to the ways in which transnationalism and globalization are not just economic or political phenomena, or related to questions of policy, but also involve culture in very fundamental ways,” adds Casteel. “Our Centre highlights how in a globalized, transnational context, people construct their identities through a variety of forms of cultural expression, including literature, music, art and religion.”

Casteel, Tiampo and Khordoc are also able to contribute to the Centre in a unique way because of their varied personal interests and research: Casteel’s first book, published with the University of Virginia Press, was about landscape in the literatures of the Americas, and her second book is about Jewishness in Caribbean literature. Tiampo has just published a book on the Gutai group of Japan with the University of Chicago Press and is working on an exhibition with the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Khordoc’s book on the Tower of Babel myth in contemporary francophone literature will be published this spring by the University of Ottawa Press.

The team also works with a Cultural Mediations PhD student, Matthew Rushton, who is helping them run the Centre.

Some of the Centre’s projects so far include keynote lectures, a conference on multiculturalism and Canadian art, and a workshop on Sephardic Jewish studies. The Centre is funded by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International), the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and ICI Berlin.

“The conferences we organize generate a lot of interest and are well-attended by students and professors,” says Khordoc. “For the last couple of years, we have also organized seminar series, in conjunction with the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture. We often co-sponsor events with other organizations at Carleton as well.”

“For example, we co-sponsored the workshop Sephardic Literary Studies and Comparative Methodologies in Iberia and the Americas,” adds Casteel. “It took place at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City in November 2011 and brought together a really exciting group of scholars from across the U.S. It was a great chance to bring exposure for our Centre and for Carleton.”

Over the years, the Centre has evolved from a small “organized research unit”, housed within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, to a Carleton University Research Centre. Its network of research associates has grown as well, as has its national and international exposure.

“By changing things on the level of research, we change the way we teach, the way people think about disciplines, and the way they approach their own projects – outside of university and after they graduate,” explains Tiampo. “The Centre provides an intellectual home to people working on transnational issues throughout campus, across the country and around the world, and gives us all a space for dialogue. It’s a wonderful and productive meeting of minds.”