Talks & Conversations

Middle Atlantic Symposium

56th Annual Sessions

Drew Lynch presents at the Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art, March 2025

Since 1971 the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts has partnered with the department of art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland to present this annual symposium. The event brings together museum and academic communities and provides a platform for the latest research from graduate students in our region. 

Read the talk abstracts.

Morning session

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Welcome by Peter M. Lukehart, The Center, National Gallery of Art
Moderated by Tess Korobkin, University of Maryland

Chase Helein, American University 
“Cupid’s Palace: Giulio Romano’s Sala di Psiche Frescoes and the Palazzo Te as Courtly Sensorium”
Introduced by Kim Butler Wingfield

Flavia Barbarini, Temple University 
“The Primacy of Disegno and the Commodification of Drawings in 16th-Century Italy”
Introduced by Tracy Cooper

Ryan Foley, George Washington University 
“Longing for the Ghulāmān-e Farangī: European Youths in 17th-Century Safavid Painting”
Introduced by Mika Natif

Zoe Copeman, University of Maryland 
“Mis-Understanding the Anatomy of the Part: How One Image Rewrote the Mastectomy Procedure”
Introduced by Anthony Colantuono

Afternoon session

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Welcome and moderated by Kaira M. Cabañas, The Center, National Gallery of Art

Christine Kim Korkmaz, Johns Hopkins University
“A Victory in Silver: Architectural Representation and Imperial Symbolism Under Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909)”
Introduced by Ünver Rüstem

Weixin Zhou, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Rebuilding the City, Building Alternatives: Ideals, Tensions, and Politics in André Lurçat’s Reconstruction of Maubeuge”
Introduced by Eduardo de Jesús Douglas

Elnaz Latifpour, University of Virginia 
“Exceptions and Expectations: Pictorial Carpets and the Question of Authenticity in Southern Iranian Weaving”
Introduced by Amanda Phillips

Emily Shoyer, Bryn Mawr College 
“Isabel Katjavivi’s They Tried to Bury Us (2018) and the Environmental Impacts of German Colonialism in Namibia” 
Introduced by Lisa Saltzman

Related event

On the Past and Future of Indian Ocean Art History

Nancy Um, The Getty Research Institute

The symposium begins at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, March 6, at the University of Maryland, College Park, with the George Levitine Lecture delivered by Nancy Um, associate director for research and knowledge creation at the Getty Research Institute. The lecture is open to the public and organized by the University of Maryland.

Learn more

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