AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2021
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AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME MAGAZINE SPRING/ SUMMER 2021
A Message from the Chair of the
Board of Trustees
It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since the
world paused. Thank you for your continued com-
mitment to AAR in what I’m sure we will remember
as one of society’s most challenging moments. Your
time, expertise, guidance, and financial support have
all been instrumental in seeing the Academy through
this period. I’d also like to thank Mark Robbins and
the whole team, especially those on the ground in
Rome, for their incredible dedication to navigating
the ups, downs, and surprises this past year has
brought.
Turning to today, the Academy has successfully
reopened and the selection process for next year’s
fellowship class is complete. AAR is in a much
stronger position than I could have imagined when
the full pandemic crisis became clear in March 2020.
Our finances are stable and (with vaccinations) we
believe that by the fall our activities will be close to
fully restored.
One of the many downsides of this past year has
been the lack of direct connection, and we look for-
ward to future gatherings in person, here and in Rome.
With appreciation and gratitude,
Cary Davis
Chair, AAR Board of Trustees
SPRING/SUMMER 2021
UP FRONT FEATURES
2 20
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT SEEING THE ANCIENT WORLD
AAR receives major gift of photographs
4 by Carole Raddato
FAR AFIELD
Checking in with past Fellows and Residents 24
GIVING FOR THE AGES
6 Richard E. Spear and Athena Tacha
INTRODUCING underwrite a new Rome Prize
The 2020–2021 Rome Prize winners and
Italian Fellows 26
IN THE FLOW
10 Current Fellows reveal what’s happening
FROM THE ARCHIVES in their studios and studies
Astra Zarina was the first woman to be awarded the
Academy’s architecture fellowship 40
ON THE ROAD, OFF THE BEATEN PATH
11 Streetscapes brings site-specific works to the
ROMAN NUMERALS Janiculum Hill
12 44
CONVERSATIONS/CONVERSAZIONI CELEBRATING THE CITY
This season’s discussions via Zoom AAR’s season of events draws to a close
in Rome and the US
46
13 SOUND AND MUSIC IN THE ALUMINUM FOREST
IN RESIDENCE Sonic installations come to the gardens
Spotlighting recent Residents of the Villa Aurelia
IN CLOSING
52
CONVIVIUM
Membership opportunities at AAR
54
DONORS
60
WHEN IN ROME
Mellon Humanities Professor Lynne Lancaster and Tom
Carpenter share their favorite places in the Eternal City
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT:
Fiumi di parole sono stati detti o scritti su questi
ultimi diciotto mesi—sulla concomitanza di grandi
lutti e speranza, di alienazione, sulla storia della vio-
lenza e la maggiore consapevolezza della necessità
del contatto sociale. Ci ricordano l’importanza di
leggere la storia come fosse una guida per interpre-
tare la vita di oggi; studiosi e artisti contribuiscono
con il loro spirito critico all’esplorazione del passato
e del presente.
Il tema di quest’anno dell’Academy è “La città”.
I centri urbani come Roma e New York sono stati
So much has been said and written about these past modellati dai commerci e dal movimento di persone,
eighteen months—about the coincidence of great e così anche lo scambio di idee nuove e difficili. È
loss and hope, of alienation, the history of violence, quindi quanto mai opportuno analizzare questo
and a greater recognition of the need for social con- argomento in un anno in cui abbiamo dovuto riflet-
tact. We are reminded of the importance of reading tere sulla distanza sociale e sul significato di comu-
history as a guide to contemporary life; scholars and nità, accomunati dall’esperienza della pandemia
artists bring critical faculties to bear, exploring the e da una nuova consapevolezza dell’ingiustizia in
past and the present. senso storico e dei diritti di tutti i cittadini.
This year’s theme at the Academy is “The City.” Questa istituzione esiste sotto varie forme dalla
Urban places like Rome and New York were shaped sua fondazione nel 1984 e oggi l’Academy riflette
by commerce and the movement of people, and with la complessità del nostro paese all’estero, impeg-
this the exchange of new and difficult ideas. It is fit- nandosi in vari modi nella città di Roma, in Italia
ting to examine this topic in a year in which we have e nel bacino del Mediterraneo in senso più ampio.
thought about social distance and what it means to Il nostro Campus è sempre più un hub globale
be a community—with the common experience of di creatività, discussione e dibattito, di cui ogni
the pandemic and a renewed awareness of historic singolo individuo è parte integrante. È con grande
injustice and the rights of all citizens. ottimismo che l’Academy ha riaperto in gennaio.
This institution has existed in many forms since Malgrado i problemi, la comunità di Roma rimane
its founding in 1894, and the Academy today reflects un luogo di intenso scambio. Ciascuno fra Borsisti e
the complexity of our country abroad, engaging in Residenti osserva dalle proprie prospettive i luoghi
many ways with the city of Rome, with Italy, and familiari, in linea questo con la tradizione che la
with the broader Mediterranean. Our campus is an storia includa sia il presente che il futuro.
increasingly global hub for creativity, discourse,
and debate, of which each individual is an integral
part. It was with great optimism that the Academy
reopened in January. In spite of the challenges,
the community in Rome remains a robust place
of exchange. Each Fellow and Resident brings a
perspective that sheds new light on familiar places,
very much in the tradition of history informing the
present and future.
Mark Robbins, President and CEO
2 AAR Magazine
i
Follow @robbinsm10 on Instagram for
Mark’s perspective on all that’s happening
at the American Academy in Rome.
OPPOSITE
Mark Robbins during Trustees’ Week,
June 2021.
Photograph by Giorgio Benni.
#romewalk #piazzavenezia #notourists #vaccination #armory #mobilization
January 15, 2021 March 12, 2021
#mayalin #ghostforest #publicart #juliemehretu #rujeckohockley
#madisonsquarepark #whitneymuseum #patronsevent
May 19, 2021 May 20, 2021
#reopening #welcome #2021fellows #sanfordbiggers #oracle #publicart
#romeprize #rockefellercenter
January 26, 2021 July 12, 2021
Spring/Summer 2021 3
FAR AFIELD:
The John Simon
Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation
has awarded 2021
fellowships to JAMES SIENA
(2013 Resident) in fine
arts and NINA C. YOUNG
(2016 Fellow) in music
composition.
SINCLAIR BELL,
2003 Fellow
and former
editor of the
The Whitney Museum of American Art JULIE MEHRETU, Memoirs of
is presenting a two-decade survey of Wind-Wind Field Drawings the American
paintings and works on paper by 2020 (quarantine studio, d.h) #1, Academy
Resident JULIE MEHRETU that originated at 2019–20, ink and acrylic on in Rome series, won a $60,000 NEH
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. paper, 26 × 40 in. Fellowship for his project “Race and
Representation in the Roman Empire:
Images of Aethiopians in Imperial Visual
The University of and Material Culture.”
Chicago Press
has published
The Eternal City: A Political theorist
History of Rome and 2020 Resident
Mehretu: Private collection, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery New York/Paris. © Julie Mehretu.
in Maps by 2005 DANIELLE ALLEN won
Fellow JESSICA MAIER. the 2020 John W.
Kluge Prize for
Achievement in the
Study of Humanity,
CHANG-RAE LEE (2008 a $500,000 award administered by the
Library of Congress that recognizes work in
Resident) was given the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize.
2021 Award of Merit for
the Novel, a $25,000
DAVID KARMON, 2016 Fellow and
prize that honors an author of the new book Architecture
outstanding writer who and the Senses in the Italian
Renaissance, has been appointed
The Wall Street Journal reviewed represents excellence in
PAUL MANSHIP: Ancient Made Modern, a editor of the Journal of the Society
Wadsworth Atheneum exhibition that the craft of the novel, by of Architectural Historians.
reveals how this sculptor—a 1912 Fellow
and creator of AAR’s Cortile fountain—
the American Academy
mastered his craft. of Arts and Letters.
4 AAR Magazine
CORINNA GOSMARO (2021
Italian Fellow) was
Three 2009 Fellows—
among sixteen artists MARIE LORENZ (visual arts),
to win an eleven-month
residency at the
DANA SPIOTTA (literature),
Fiminco Foundation and KURT ROHDE (musical
in Romainville, France. Her residency
begins this September. composition)—won a
2021 Creative Capital
Johns Hopkins grant in opera and
University named former
AAR Director CHRISTOPHER
sculpture for their project,
CELENZA (1994 Fellow) Newtown Odyssey.
vice provost for faculty
affairs.
ALISA LAGAMMA (2018 Affiliated Fellow)
curated the highly praised exhibition CATHERINE BONESHO (2018 Fellow) has
Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of received a 2021–22 academic year
the Sahara for her home institution, the Among the recipients of the fellowship from the Frankel Center
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2021 American Academy for Judaic Studies at the University
of Michigan, where she will work on
of Arts and Letters music her second book project, “Kings,
awards are DAVID SANFORD Queens, and Caesars: Gentile
(2003 Fellow), YOTAM Rulers in Early Jewish Literature.”
HABER (2008 Fellow), LEI
LIANG (2012 Fellow), ANNIE The Archaeological Institute of
America has appointed EMMA BLAKE
GOSFIELD (2016 Resident),
(2013 Fellow) and Robert Schon
and WILLIAM DOUGHERTY as the next joint editors-in-chief of
(2021 Fellow). the American Journal of Archaeology.
WALTER HOOD
(1997 Fellow)
JACK LIVINGS (2017 Fellow) published his
won a 2021
first novel The Blizzard Party, written fellowship in
during his Rome Prize year, with Farrar, architecture
Straus and Giroux. and design from
United States
Artists.
SANFORD BIGGERS (2018 Fellow) showed his
monumental Oracle sculpture and other
works across the Rockefeller Center
campus in New York. This public art
exhibition, a partnership with the Art
Production Fund, ran through July 12.
Spring/Summer 2021 5
INTRODUCING: ARCHITECTURE
Rome Prize in Architecture
Germane Barnes
Assistant Professor, School of
Architecture, University of Miami
Structuring Blackness in Rome
The 2021–2022
Arnold W. Brunner/Frances Barker Tracy/
Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize
Mireille Roddier and Keith Mitnick
Rome Prize winners Associate Professors, Taubman College,
University of Michigan
and Italian Fellows
Six Architectures in Search of an Author
DESIGN
Meet the American Academy in Rome’s newest group of scholars, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky
artists, writers, and composers, representing some of the most Rome Prize
Mary Ellen Carroll
talented minds in the United States and Italy.
Principal, MEC, studios, New York
PUBBLICA UTILITÀ DUE (Designing
and Architecting the Invisible—Radio
Frequency in the Twenty-First Century)
ANCIENT STUDIES Mark Hampton/Jesse Howard Jr.
Rome Prize
National Endowment for the Humanities/ Jennifer Pastore
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Executive Photography Director, WSJ.
Sasha-Mae Eccleston (Wall Street Journal Magazine), New York
John Rowe Workman Assistant Professor, Do You Know? Italian Storytelling Traditions
Department of Classics, Brown University and Emotional Resilience
Epic Events
HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Samuel H. Kress Foundation/ AND CONSERVATION
Helen M. Woodruff/Archaeological
Institute of America Rome Prize Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize
Kevin Ennis Carol Mancusi-Ungaro
PhD Candidate, Department of Classics, Melva Bucksbaum Associate Director
Stanford University for Conservation and Research, Whitney
Towards an Economic History of Women’s Museum of American Art
Work: The Archaeology of Weaving in Sicily Artist/Conservator Nexus
from Prehistory to the Republic
Kevin Ennis’s project examines the Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize
Emeline Hill Richardson/ household textile industry in Sicily from Sarah Nunberg
Arthur Ross Rome Prize prehistory to the Republic to foreground Visiting Professor, Department of
Grace Funsten the vital roles women played in systems Mathematics and Science, Pratt Institute
PhD Candidate, Department of Classics, of production and consumption in Advancing Sustainable Practices in
University of Washington antiquity. (Pictured: Lydian loom weight, Cultural Heritage Preservation
En versus facio: Rewriting Augustan Elegy 6th century BC or later, terracotta, 2 in.
in Latin Epitaphs, Maximianus, and Metropolitan Museum of Art) Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize
Louise Labé Ellen Pearlstein
Professor, UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental
Millicent Mercer Johnsen Rome Prize Andrew Heiskell/ Program in the Conservation of
John Izzo Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Rome Prize Archaeological and Ethnographic
PhD Candidate, Department of Classics, Adriana Maria Vazquez Materials and Department of Information
Columbia University Assistant Professor, Department Studies, University of California,
Tironian Notes: Literary and Historical of Classics, University of California, Los Angeles
Studies on Marcus Tullius Tiro Los Angeles Conservation Consultation around
Window Reception: Brazilian Neoclassical Indigenous American Materials—
Poetry and Lusophone Classics across the View from Europe
the Atlantic
6 AAR Magazine
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Firelei Báez will
Prince Charitable Trusts/Kate Lancaster create site-
Brewster Rome Prize specific paintings
Michael Lee and a sculptural
Reuben M. Rainey Professor in the installation to tell
History of Landscape Architecture, underrepresented
Department of Landscape Architecture, stories of women
University of Virginia who played
Ganymede’s Garden: Homoeroticism significant roles
and the Italian Landscape within Italian
history.
Garden Club of America Rome Prize (Pictured: detail
Phoebe Lickwar of for Marie-
Associate Professor, School of Louise Coidavid,
Architecture, University of Texas at Austin exiled, keeper
Promiscuous Cultures: Agroecology and of order,
the Orto Urbano Anacaona, 2018,
oil on canvas)
LITERATURE
John Guare Writers Fund Rome Prize,
a Gift of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman
Jessica Hagedorn
Poet, novelist, playwright, and
multimedia artist, New York
Saturday Night At Lung Fung’s
Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES Frederic A. Juilliard/Walter Damrosch
a Gift of the Drue Heinz Trust Rome Prize
Robin Coste Lewis Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies Tina Tallon
Writer in Residence, Department of Mary Jane Dempsey Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for
English, University of Southern California PhD Candidate, Department of Romance Advanced Study, Harvard University
To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness Studies, Cornell University Shrill
Remember to Forget: Migration, Gender,
Rome Prize in Literature and Transnational Identities in Twentieth- RENAISSANCE AND
Valzhyna Mort Century Italy EARLY MODERN STUDIES
Assistant Professor, Department of
Literatures in English, Cornell University Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies Marian and Andrew Heiskell/
A Girl from Pravda Avenue Elena Past Anthony M. Clark Rome Prize
Professor, Department of Classical Lillian Datchev
MEDIEVAL STUDIES and Modern Languages, Literatures, PhD Candidate, Department of History,
and Cultures, Wayne State University Princeton University
Samuel H. Kress Foundation/ #FilmIsAlive: Ferrania and the Lives The Mercantile Origins of Early Modern
Donald and Maria Cox Rome Prize of Analog Film in the Digital Age Antiquarian Scholarship
Erene Rafik Morcos
PhD Candidate, Department of Art Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies National Endowment for the Humanities
and Archaeology, Princeton University SA Smythe Rome Prize
Mirroring the Reflections of the Soul: Assistant Professor, Department of Eugenio Refini
The Greco-Latin Psalter Gender Studies and African American Associate Professor, Department of Italian
Studies, University of California, Studies, New York University
Paul Mellon/Andrew W. Mellon Los Angeles Ariadne’s Echo: Voice, Memory, and the
Foundation Rome Prize Where Blackness Meets the Sea: Performance of Reception
Randall Todd Pippenger On Crisis, Culture, and the
Lecturer, Department of History, Black Mediterranean VISUAL ARTS
Princeton University
Báez: photograph by Timo Ohler.
Left Behind: Veterans, Widows, and MUSICAL COMPOSITION Philip Guston Rome Prize
Orphans in the Era of the Crusades Firelei Báez
Samuel Barber Rome Prize Artist, Bronx
Igor Santos To see beyond it and to access the places
Composer, Chicago that we know lie outside its walls
Ebb and Flow, Past and Present
Spring/Summer 2021 7
Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize 2021–2022 ITALIAN FELLOWS Dan-El Padilla Peralta
Autumn Knight Associate Professor, Department of
Artist, New York Enel Foundation Italian Fellow Classics, Princeton University
Attention Economy in Architecture, Urban Design,
and Landscape Architecture Verity Platt
Philip Guston Rome Prize Alessio Battistella Professor, Department of Classics and
Eric N. Mack Architect, ARCò – Architettura Department of Art History, and Chair,
Artist, New York e Cooperazione, Milan Department of Classics, Cornell University
In Austerity the work will be stripped from The Sustainable Lightness of the Limit
its support and worn as a sarong Design
Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT
Abigail Cohen Rome Prize Italian Fellow in Visual Arts Mark Lee, 2017 Resident (Jury Chair)
Daniel Joseph Martinez Manuele Cerutti Founder and Partner, Johnston MarkLee,
Donald Bren Professor of Art, Department Artist, Turin Los Angeles
of Art, University of California, Irvine Secret Companions
Forum Romanum of Dissent or To See Irma Boom, 2018 Resident
The World Without Time Franco Zeffirelli Italian Fellow in Modern Founder and Principal, Irma Boom Office,
Italian Studies Amsterdam
Rome Prize in Visual Art Beatrice Falcucci
La Nietas de Nonó (Mapenzi Chibale Nonó and PhD Candidate, Department of Letters Stephen Burks
Mulowayi Iyaye Nonó) and Philosophy, Università degli Studi Founder and Principal, Stephen Burks
Artists, Carolina, Puerto Rico di Firenze Man Made
Foodtopia: después de todo territorio Exhibiting the Empire: Colonial Collections
in Piedmont Mikyoung Kim
Jules Guerin/Harold M. English Founding Principal, Mikyoung Kim
Rome Prize Enel Foundation Italian Fellow in Design, Boston
William Villalongo Architecture, Urban Design, and
Associate Professor, School of Art, Landscape Architecture Leslie Lokko
Cooper Union Valerio Morabito Professor, Founder, and Director,
In Search of Black Atlantis Architect and Professor, Università African Futures Institute
Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria and
TERRA FOUNDATION University of Pennsylvania Anuradha Mathur
FELLOWSHIP Imagining American Cities Professor, Landscape Architecture
Department, Stuart Weitzman School of
Julia A. Sienkewicz Italian Fellow in Modern Italian Studies Design, University of Pennsylvania
Associate Professor, Fine Arts Rosa Sessa
Department, Roanoke College Research Fellow in History of Mabel O. Wilson
Forms of White Hegemony: Transnational Architecture, Department of Architecture, Nancy and George Rupp Professor
Sculptors, Racialized Identity, and the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II of Architecture, Graduate School of
Torch of Civilization, 1836–1865 Architecture as Cultural Bridge: Architecture, Planning, and Preservation,
Reception and Dissemination of the Italian Columbia University
Architecture in the Italian–
Additional leadership grant support for the American Discourse of the Postwar Era Historic Preservation and Conservation
Rome Prize program is provided by:
The Brown Foundation Rahul Mehrotra, 2017 Resident (Jury Chair)
The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation 2021–2022 ROME PRIZE JURORS John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing
and Urbanization, Graduate School of
Endowment support provided by: Ancient Studies Design, Harvard University; and
Miss Edith Bloom Fund Founding Principal, RMA Architects,
Frank E. and Jaquelin G. Brown Fund Mary Ann Eaverly (Jury Chair) Mumbai and Boston
Clarke & Rapuano Fund Professor of Classics and Department
Phyllis W. G. Gordan Chair, Department of Classics, University Jorge L. Hernandez
Graham Foundation of Florida Professor, Department of Architecture,
Andrew W. Imbrie Memorial Fund University of Miami; and Founding
in Music Sarah Levin-Richardson, 2015 Fellow Principal, JLH Architect, Coral
Henry E. and Marian T. Mitchell Associate Professor, Department of Gables, Florida
Fellowship Fund Classics, University of Washington
Irene Rosenzweig Fund Bryony Roberts, 2016 Fellow
C. V. Starr Scholarship Fund Jackie Murray, 2012 Fellow Founding Director, Bryony Roberts Studio;
Charles K. Williams II Fund Associate Professor of Classics, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Graduate
Department of Modern and Classical School of Architecture, Planning,
Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, and Preservation, Columbia University
University of Kentucky
8 AAR MagazineAnna Serotta, 2015 Fellow Mark Chu Visual Arts
Associate Conservator, Metropolitan Professor, Department of Italian, University
Museum of Art College Cork Adam D. Weinberg, 2020 Resident (Jury
Chair)
Literature Vivien M. Greene, 2004 Fellow Alice Pratt Brown Director, Whitney
Senior Curator, 19th- and Early Museum of American Art
Francine Prose, 2006 Resident (Jury Chair) 20th-Century Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Distinguished Writer in Residence, Museum Teresita Fernández, 1999 Affiliated Fellow,
Bard College 2018 Resident
Joseph Luzzi Artist, Brooklyn
T. Geronimo Johnson, 2018 Fellow Professor of Comparative Literature
Writer, Berkeley, California and Faculty Member in Italian Studies, Ann Hamilton, 2017 Resident
Bard College Artist and Distinguished University
Sandra Lim Professor, Ohio State University
Associate Professor, Department Musical Composition
of English, University of Byron Kim
Massachusetts, Lowell Suzanne Farrin, 2018 Fellow (Jury Chair) Artist, Brooklyn
Frayda B. Lindemann Professor of Music,
Sigrid Nunez, 2001 Fellow Hunter College and the Graduate Center, Glenn Ligon, 2020 Resident
Writer in Residence, Boston University City University of New York Artist, Brooklyn
Brenda Shaughnessy Andy Akiho, 2015 Fellow Helen O’Leary, 2019 Fellow
Professor, Department of English, Composer, New York and Artist and Professor of Art, School of
Rutgers University, Newark Portland, Oregon Visual Arts, Pennsylvania State University
Medieval Studies Jonathan Berger, 2017 Fellow Walid Raad
Denning Family Provostial Professor Artist and Professor, Cooper Union
William Jordan, 2018 Resident (Jury Chair) in Music, Department of Music,
Dayton-Stockton Professor of Stanford University Terra Foundation Affiliated Fellowship
History, Department of History, in Rome
Princeton University Tania J. León, 1998 Resident
Distinguished Professor Emerita, City Winners of this award are selected
Hussein Fancy, 2017 Fellow University of New York; and Composer, through a joint effort of the Terra
Associate Professor, Department Conductor, Founder, and Artistic Director, Foundation Fellowship jury (listed below)
of History, University of Michigan Composers Now and the Rome Prize Jury for Modern
Italian Studies.
Areli Marina, 2001 Fellow Lei Liang, 2012 Fellow
Associate Professor, Kress Foundation Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Mark D. Mitchell (Jury Chair)
Department of Art History, University Music, Department of Music, University of Holcombe T. Green Curator of American
of Kansas California, San Diego Paintings and Sculpture, Yale University
Art Gallery
Marina Rustow, 2007 Fellow Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Silvia Bottinelli
Civilization in the Near East, Lisa Pon (Jury Chair) Senior Lecturer, Visual and Material
Department of Near Eastern Studies, Professor, Dornsife Department of Art Studies Department, School of the
Princeton University History, University of Southern California Museum of Fine Arts–Tufts University
Nicholas Watson Renée Baernstein, 1991 Fellow Erica E. Hirshler
Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of Professor of History and Senior Associate Croll Senior Curator of American
English Literature, Department of English, Dean of the College of Arts and Science, Paintings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Harvard University Miami University
Crawford Alexander Mann III
Modern Italian Studies Virginia Cox Curator of Prints and Drawings,
Professor of Italian, Department of Italian Smithsonian American Art Museum
Anna Harwell Celenza (Jury Chair) Studies, New York University
Thomas E. Caestecker Professor of
Music, Department of Performing Arts, Anthony M. Cummings, 2012 Resident
Georgetown University Professor of Music and Coordinator of
Italian Studies, Lafayette College
Mark I. Choate
Associate Professor, Department of Anthony Grafton, 2004 Resident
History, Brigham Young University Henry Putnam Professor, Department of
History, Princeton University
Spring/Summer 2021 9FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Astra Zarina receiving her master’s degree Rome only reachable by a foot-
1962 Fellow, Architecture from MIT, she worked in an archi- bridge, where she and her hus-
tecture firm in Detroit and began band Anthony Costa Heywood
teaching as a lecturer for the UW ultimately moved to after retiring
Astra Zarina (1929–2008), pro-
Architecture Department. in 2000. They restored numerous
fessor emeritus of architecture
In 1970 she initiated the buildings in the town and contin-
at the University of Washington
Architecture of Rome program, ued promoting it until she died
and founder of her school’s
teaching groups of students in in 2008.
Italian Studies programs and
her own apartment. The program
the UW Rome Center, was the
continued as the Rome Center Claudia Trezza is a writer based
first woman to be awarded the
for the College of Architecture in Rome.
Academy’s architecture fellow-
and Urban Planning, which she
ship. Throughout her career
directed until the mid-1990s in LEFT
and life, she contributed to the
the Palazzo Pio in Rome, above Astra Zarina at the Civita di Bagnoregio,
restoration of many buildings Italy, 1960s.
the ruins of the Roman Theater of
in Italy and elsewhere, includ-
Pompey. During the construction
ing the small neighborhood of RIGHT
of the school, a medieval tower Astra Zarina (left) and Tony Costa
Märkisches Viertel in Berlin.
that had been hidden for centu-
Photographs courtesy the Civita Institute.
Heywood (center) in the Sala Grande,
Born in Riga, Latvia, Astra Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy, 1960s.
ries was discovered, and Astra
emigrated to the United States
oversaw its restoration.
with her family after WWII and
In 1976 she began a similar
studied architecture at the
program in Civita di Bagnoregio,
University of Washington under
a small, isolated medieval hill
Lionel Pries, Wendell Lovett,
town about sixty miles from
and Victor Steinbrueck. After
10 AAR MagazineROMAN NUMERALS:
Inside the deliberation and selection process The 2021–2022 Rome Prize winners at a glance
874
applications
3.6%
acceptance rate
4,752
pages of text reviewed by humanities jurors
68%
women
2,514
images viewed by visual arts jurors
44%
people of color
4,440
portfolio pages reviewed by jurors in architecture,
24%
born outside the United States
design, landscape architecture, and historic
preservation and conservation
453
recordings and scores reviewed by music jurors
Spring 2021 XICONVERSATIONS/CONVERSAZIONI:
The
Between fall 2020 and spring 2021, AAR continued its signature series
of events, Conversations/Conversazioni: From the American Academy in
Rome, which convenes leading artists, scholars, architects, and conser-
City
vationists for frank, wide-ranging discussions on a variety of topics in
the arts and humanities.
The season’s events, which are part of AAR’s year-long exploration
of the theme “The City,” took place on Zoom. You can view recordings of
them at aarome.org/events/watch.
The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation generously sponsored the 2020–21 season of
Conversations/Conversazioni.
NOTES FROM AMERICA
A. O. Scott & Garrett Bradley TOWARD FREEDOM: CHICAGO MURALISTS IN
Catherine Opie & Mark Robbins November 23, 2020
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION
October 5, 2020 Rebecca Zorach & Nicole Marroquin
New York Times critic at large A. O. Scott March 9, 2021
Photographer Catherine Opie (2021 (2020 Resident) and filmmaker and artist
Resident) discussed her work and the Garrett Bradley (2020 Fellow) discussed Art historian Rebecca Zorach and artist
idea of place as a portrait, as well as her Garrett’s work addressing themes of race, Nicole Marroquin considered murals
recent road trip across the US, with AAR class, familial relationships, social justice, as interventions in and contestations of
President Mark Robbins (1997 Fellow). Southern culture, and the history of film urban space with examples drawn from
in the US. the long history of public art and political
movements in Chicago.
ROOTS OF THE CITY
Jorge Otero-Pailos & Sheena Wagstaff
March 11, 2021
Artist and preservationist Jorge Otero-
Pailos and curator Sheena Wagstaff
ON GHETTOES: MEDIEVAL, MODERN, discussed art as a vehicle for reframing
AND METAPHORICAL preservation and explored the emotive
THE PERGAMON PANORAMA
David Nirenberg & Avinoam Shalem power of place, space, and objects.
IN BERLIN: WHERE TRADITION AND
February 2, 2021
INNOVATION CONVERGE
Andreas Scholl & Lynne Lancaster Historian David Nirenberg and AAR
November 2, 2020 Director Avinoam Shalem (2016 Resident)
explored the emergence of these urban
Andreas Scholl, director of spaces, why they proved useful as mar-
Antikensammlung Berlin, and AAR ginal spaces and metaphor, and how the
Humanities Professor Lynne Lancaster phenomenon works today. ARTHUR AND JANET C. ROSS
(2002 Fellow) discussed the Pergamon
ROME PRIZE CEREMONY
Panorama in Berlin, which combines
traditional methods and digital technology COLONIAL CITIES AND IMPERIAL CITIZENS David Adjaye & Avinoam Shalem
to re-create the ancient city of Pergamon. Mary T. Boatwright & Mia Fuller April 23, 2021
February 23, 2021 Architect David Adjaye (2016 Resident)
Scholars Mary T. Boatwright and Mia and Avinoam Shalem explored the city
Fuller discussed how state-driven as residue of injustice, postsecular shared
settlements of Romans and Italians from religious spaces, and how his time in
Pergamon: Photo by Asisi F&E GmbH.
one region to another both inspired and Rome influenced concepts of dignity,
discouraged senses of citizenship. imagination, and rebirth for a museum
in Benin.
12 AAR MagazineIN RESIDENCE:
Each year, distinguished
artists and scholars
from around the world
are invited to the
Academy as Residents.
During their stay, Residents
live and work as part of the
community, serving informally
as a resource for the Fellows
and participating in special
Academy-wide events—concerts,
exhibitions, lecture, readings,
and instructional walks in Rome.
Meet our Residents for this winter
and spring.
Catherine Opie in
her Los Angeles
studio with maps
of Vatican City.
Spring/Summer 2021 13CATHERINE OPIE
Robert Mapplethorpe Resident in
Photography, May 3–June 11, 2021
“Photographer Catherine Opie’s
expansive range of images shows
an America that is sometimes
hidden, but often in plain sight,”
writes AAR President Mark
Robbins in the catalogue for the
group exhibition The Academic
Body, held at AAR in 2019. “She
strives to make apparent the
things we no longer see in her
subjects, whether that subject
©Catherine Opie, Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, London and Thomas Dane Gallery, London and Naples.
is surfers, football players, mini
malls, the abstract blues of Lake
Michigan, the S & M community,
or lesbian couples.”
Cathy recently photographed
Florida swamps during a 2019
residency in New Smyrna Beach,
and then took her camera across
the country in an RV during
the pandemic. She has visited
Italy before but only now made
the trip to Rome. As an artist
interested in the “specificity of
identity of place,” she planned
to formulate how to photograph
be curious to try to figure this Catherine Opie,
the Vatican, to “really look at
body of work,” Cathy remarked. Untitled #4, Richmond, Virginia
the borders and the boundaries (monument/monumental)
“Identity is something that you
of the Vatican being its own city 2020
just don’t slap on. You live it, and pigment print
within a city.” Her challenge was
you look at it. You have to think 66 x 44 inches
to produce images that explore
about it.”
the position of Catholicism in
Cathy is professor of pho-
relation to place and history. One
tography and endowed chair
idea was to capture the insides
of the Department of Art at
and outsides of corners that
the University of California,
make up the walls between the
Los Angeles. Last October she
Vatican and the rest of Rome.
participated in a Conversations/
“My American identity is pretty
Conversazioni with Mark Robbins,
tied up in my work. It’s going to
titled “Notes from America.”
14 AAR MagazineBookmatched marble at Sant’Ignazio in
Rome that seems suggestive of
an abstract, monstrous face.
REBECCA ZORACH (2011), on the embedded signif- worked on The Designs of Nature,
Louis Kahn Resident in the History icance of this geometric shape. a book project focusing on the
of Art, March 8–April 2, 2021 Her proclivity for collaboration early modern European idea
is represented by numerous that nature can create art like
Rebecca Zorach is the Mary edited volumes including The humans do. Sixteenth-century
Jane Crowe Professor in Art and Wall of Respect: Public Art and Italian natural philosophy, in
Art History at Northwestern Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago particular the work of Ulisse
University, where she teaches (2017) with Abdul Alkalimat and Aldrovandi, pointed her toward
and writes on early modern Romi Crawford, and The Idol in the idea of photographing fossils
European art from the fifteenth the Age of Art with Michael Cole that appear in the pavements
to seventeenth centuries, as well (2009). Rebecca has also worked and other stone features in
as on contemporary activist art on numerous exhibition cata- Italian churches. “Along similar
and the art of the 1960s and 1970s. logues, including Paper Museums: lines,” she said, “I’ve been on the
Prior to Northwestern she was The Reproductive Print in Europe lookout for book-matched (or
at the University of Chicago for 1500–1800 (2005) with Elizabeth “butterflied”) marble revetments
fourteen years. Rodini, currently AAR’s Andrew in churches that not only create
Rebecca’s interdisciplinary Heiskell Arts Director. abstract shapes but also loosely
research interests are reflected Rebecca participated evoke various representational
in books such as Art for People’s in a March Conversations/ forms and might suggest nature
Sake: Artists and Community in Conversazioni with Nicole ‘helped’ by art to create images.”
Black Chicago, 1965–1975 (2019); Marroquin called “Toward
Gold: Nature and Culture (2016), Freedom: Chicago Muralists
written with Michael W. Phillips in the Struggle for Liberation”
Jr.; and The Passionate Triangle during her Residency. She also
Spring/Summer 2021 15RAMONA S. DIAZ lot of my documentary work.” It’s
McGurn Family Trust Resident in useful as she tries her hand at fic-
Film, June 14–August 6, 2021 tion, working on a project using
nonprofessional child actors.
“I know Rome, or Italy really, “The last time I was in Rome
through films,” said Ramona S. was the early ’90s,” she said. “I
Diaz, an award-winning direc- am looking forward to walking
tor, screenwriter, and producer around the city and discovering
whose feature-length documen- for myself the wonders of a sto-
taries have been screened at fes- ried city like Rome. ‘Getting lost’
tivals internationally, including and finding my way back is how
Sundance, Berlin International I like to discover things and
Film Festival, SXSW, Tribeca Film be inspired and think about
Festival, and Hot Docs. Her sub- my work.”
ject matter is diverse—covering A graduate of Emerson
politics, popular culture, public College and Stanford University,
schoolteachers, and human Ramona won a United States
birth—yet it centers on Filipino Artists fellowship in 2019 and
American experiences. a John Simon Guggenheim
Among Ramona’s criti- Memorial Fellowship in 2016,
cally praised works are Imelda the same year in which she was
(2004), focused on the extrav- inducted into the Academy of
agant former first lady of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Philippines Imelda Marcos; Don’t
Stop Believin’: Every Man’s Journey
(2012), a chronicle of how the
American rock band Journey
found a replacement lead singer,
a Filipino named Arnel Pineda,
on YouTube; and Motherland
(2017), which the Baltimore Sun
described as “an astonishing and
often heartbreaking exploration
of a Manila maternity ward.” Her
most recent work, A Thousand
Cuts (2020), explores the conflict
between Rodrigo Duterte’s
presidency and the Filipino
press, notably the journalist
Maria Ressa.
Ramona studied Italian neore-
alist cinema while in film school,
which she says “really informed a
16 AAR MagazineDAVID NIRENBERG
Lester K. Little Resident in Medieval
Studies, January 25–March 5, 2021
Interactions among Jewish,
Christian, and Islamic cultures
have long fascinated David
Nirenberg, the Deborah R. and
Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished
Service Professor of Medieval
History and Social Thought at
the University of Chicago,
where he is also dean of the
Divinity School.
David’s 1996 prize-winning
book Communities of Violence:
Persecution of Minorities in the
Middle Ages, republished in 2015
with a new preface, examined
the role of violence within
Spain and France in shaping the
possibilities for the coexistence
of Christians, Jews, and Muslims
in medieval Spain and France.
He explored similar topics in
Anti-Judaism (2013), Neighboring
Faiths (2014), and Aesthetic
Theology and Its Enemies (2015).
Taking a different perspective is
the forthcoming Uncountable: A
Philosophical History of Number
and Humanity from Antiquity
in agriculture and for humans, where they discussed how the
to the Present. Cowritten with
affected the ways in which early term ghetto—which described
Ricardo L. Nirenberg, this book
Christians—including many the late-medieval phenomenon
accounts how numerical rela-
who came to be thought of as of segregating Jews into distinct
tions became the cornerstone
heretical, such as the Gnostics— city neighborhoods—developed
of human claims for knowledge,
imagined the reproduction over time.
truth, and certainty.
of godliness.”
At the Academy David worked
In February, David partici-
on a history of race and religion
pated in “On Ghettoes: Medieval,
in Judaism, Christianity, and
Modern, and Metaphorical,” a
Islam, in a chapter exploring how
Conversations/Conversazioni with
“Roman practices of reproduction,
AAR Director Avinoam Shalem
Spring/Summer 2021 17ANURADHA MATHUR
AND DILIP DA CUNHA
Mercedes T. Bass Landscape
Architects in Residence,
April 27–May 26, 2021
Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da
Cunha are the founders and
principles of design firm Mathur/
da Cunha, based in Philadelphia
and Bangalore, India. An archi-
tect and landscape architect, Anu
is a professor in the University of
Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School
of Design. Dilip is an architect,
planner, and adjunct professor at
Columbia University’s Graduate
School of Architecture, Planning,
and Preservation who received a
Guggenheim fellowship in 2020.
Anu and Dilip’s work has
focused on how water is visual-
ized and engaged in ways that
lead to conditions of its excess
and scarcity, but also to opportu-
nities that its ubiquity offers for
new visualizations of place and
resilience through design. They
are authors of Mississippi Floods:
Designing a Shifting Landscape Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha visited the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, May 16, 2021.
(2001), Deccan Traverses: The
Making of Bangalore’s Terrain
(2006), and Soak: Mumbai in from water—as a fundamental act like the aqueducts, drains, foun-
an Estuary (2009), as well as in designs of human habitation. tains, et cetera, and nonlinear
coeditors of Design in the Terrain In Rome Anu and Dilip worked on systems like cisterns and wells
of Water (2014). Exhibitions and its sequel, an exhibition and book that have mostly disappeared.”
books form an intrinsic part of called The Ocean of Rain that Their goal was to determine if
their practice. embraces ubiquitous wetness Rome is a city on the banks of the
In 2019 Dilip published The as an alternative to river land- Tiber River, or a place immersed
Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s scapes. They also documented in the Tiber.
Eye and Ganga’s Descent (2019), “water infrastructure” in both
which draws attention to rivers— photography and drawing, cap-
namely, the separation of land turing “the linear flow systems
18 AAR MagazineMARY T. BOATWRIGHT University of Michigan, where spot nearby where her remains
Esther Van Deman Scholar in she was earning her doctorate. were cheaply and hurriedly
Residence, March 8–April 16, 2021 She returned to AAR in 1978–79 interred; and locales in Rome
to work as an assistant for a and elsewhere that are home to
Mary “Tolly” Boatwright’s conference that John D’Arms ran inscriptions and portraits of her.
year as an undergraduate at on the seaborne commerce of Pandemic restrictions, however,
the Intercollegiate Center for ancient Rome. Since then Tolly precluded visits to sites outside
Classical Studies in Rome during has made periodic appearances Lazio. Through AAR Tolly was
the early 1970s was instrumental at the Academy—most recently able to climb the Column of
in her decision to attend gradu- in summer 2015 when she began Marcus Aurelius; she also visited
ate school and become a profes- research for her new book, other publicly accessible sites in
sional classicist. The landmark Imperial Women of Rome: Power, the city.
books that followed include Gender, Context (2021). Exchanges with Fellows
Hadrian and the City of Rome During her 2021 Residency, opened new approaches to
(1987), Hadrian and the Cities of Tolly made progress on her biog- Agrippina, and to Roman topog-
the Roman Empire (2000), and raphy of Agrippina the Younger. raphy and urbanism as well.
Peoples of the Roman World (2012). “This is a very new endeavor for Tolly also discussed “Colonial
After a distinguished career me, since I have tended to work Cities and Imperial Citizens”
that includes over forty years of on topography, Hadrian, and with Mia Fuller in a February
teaching classical studies and social history.” She had plans to Conversations/Conversazioni.
history, Tolly is now Professor visit several sites: Agrippina’s
Emerita at Duke University. villa on the Bay of Naples, where
In 1977–78, Tolly was the Roman empress was killed
Affiliated Fellow with the by order of her son Nero; the
Spring/Summer 2021 19Seeing the
Ancient World
All photographs by Carole Raddato.
AAR Receives Major Gift of
Photographs by Carole Raddato
20 AAR MagazineThe collection includes 30,000 images
of antiquity across the Mediterranean
Basin, Europe, and the Middle East.
The photographer Carole Raddato has gifted the
core of her vast collection—some thirty thousand
digital images—to the AAR Library to ensure its long-
term preservation and continued access to schol-
ars. The gift, which represents the most important
collection of images of antiquity to come to the
Academy since Ernest Nash’s Fototeca Unione was
formed in 1956, is the first to consist of photos taken
wholly in the twenty-first century.
Though self-trained as a photographer and
ancient history enthusiast, Raddato has estab-
lished herself over the past ten years as a premier
and energetic photographer of Roman antiquity
in the Mediterrean Basin, Europe, and the Middle
East. Born in France, Raddato currently resides
in Frankfurt, Germany, and is employed in the
UK music industry. She started her popular blog,
Following Hadrian, in 2012 as a way to tell the stories
behind her images, and has built up a very sizable
and active social-media following.
So far, Raddato has photographed well over nine
hundred sites and museum exhibitions focusing on
the classical period. These include significant but
less-visited archaeological areas outside continental
Europe, including Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey (includ-
ing southern and eastern Anatolia), Israel, Jordan,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and most recently Egypt and
Iran. One of her most valuable contributions is
photographing ephemeral exhibitions of classical
subjects in lesser-known museums.
The quality of Raddato’s images of both sites
and artifacts is often the best available. Strikingly,
she has made all her photos free for use under the
Creative Commons/Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Inevitably, her photographs have found their way
into dozens of recently published academic books.
For samples of the collection, visit the Digital
Humanities Center at dhc.aarome.org/raddato.
LEFT
Philadelphia
(Amman), Jordan.
Spring/Summer 2021 21TOP
Anjar, Lebanon.
BOTTOM
Philadelphia
(Amman), Jordan.
22 AAR MagazineTOP LEFT
Naqsh-e Rostam,
Iran.
TOP RIGHT
Machnaqa,
Lebanon.
BOTTOM
Aizanoi, Turkey.
Spring/Summer 2021 23Giving
for the
Ages
Richard E. Spear
and Athena Tacha
Underwrite a
New Rome Prize
Athena Tacha and Richard E. Spear at Iguazu Falls in South America.
The art historian Richard E. Spear on during the 1960s, ’70s, and Post called “a masterwork of
and his wife, the artist Athena ’80s, and he took advantage of Tacitus-like force, clarity
Tacha, are committed to the mis- the Eternal City’s exceptional and precision.”
sion of the American Academy research opportunities—includ- Born in Greece, Athena Tacha
in Rome. They have now become ing the collections of the Arthur is a multimedia artist whose
members of the McKim & Morgan and Janet C. Ross Library. AAR experience of living in Rome and
Society, the group that supports invited Richard to be a Resident exploring the city’s steps and
the Academy through planned in 1988. public spaces had a profound
giving. Their generous bequest Richard has written exten- influence on her work. She
will underwrite a Rome Prize sively on Baroque art. His was a pioneer in environmental
Fellowship, which will alternate major publications include and site-specific sculpture
between art history and studio Caravaggio and His Followers as well as artist’s books. Athena
art each year, in perpetuity. (1975), a two-volume catalogue studied at the Athens School
A specialist in Italian Baroque raisonné on Domenichino (1982), of Fine Arts for an MFA, earned
painting, Richard earned a BA The “Divine” Guido: Religion, Sex, an MA in art history at Oberlin
from the University of Chicago Money, and Art in the World College, and completed a
and a PhD from Princeton of Guido Reni (1997), and Painting PhD in aesthetics at the Sorbonne
University in 1965, the year after for Profit: The Economic Lives in Paris. She returned to Oberlin
he began teaching at Oberlin of Seventeenth-Century Italian in 1963 to become a curator
College, where he later served as Painters (2010), coauthored with at the Allen and also to concen-
director of the Allen Memorial Philip Sohm. His most recent trate on her own art practice.
Art Museum (1972–83). After he book is Caravaggio’s “Cardsharps” Athena became a professor
and Athena married in 1965, the on Trial: Thwaytes v. Sotheby’s of sculpture at Oberlin and
couple lived in Rome off and (2020), which the Washington began to show nationally,
24 AAR MagazineBELOW BOTTOM
winning numerous public- Athena is an adjunct professor at Richard Spear’s Athena Tacha,
art commissions across the the same school. latest book, Connections,,
Connections
United States. Richard and Athena’s time in Caravaggio’s 1981–92, brown
“Cardsharps” stone, granite
Athena’s work was included Rome has profoundly impacted
on Trial (2020). rocks, and plant-
in the 39th Venice Biennale in their careers, and their contin- ings, Franklin
1980, the Onassis Cultural Center ued dedication to the Academy Town, 18th and
in Athens in 2011, and in numer- ensures that future generations Hamilton Streets,
ous solo shows at Zabriskie can live and work in this resi- Philadelphia.
Gallery in New York and Marsha dential community, illuminated
Mateyka Gallery in Washington, by the presence of Rome. “We
DC. The High Museum of Art are happy to support AAR’s
presented a survey of her work Fellowship program,” they said,
in 1989; another retrospective, “because both of us love Rome
Athena Tacha: From Public to and what it offers art historians
Private, traveled across Greece and artists. It was such a privilege
in 2010. Last year she published to be able to live at the Academy
Fifty Years Inside an Artist’s Mind: and explore the city’s extraordi-
The Journal of Athena Tacha. nary cultural heritage.”
Today Richard and Athena For information about
live in Washington, DC. Richard making a planned gift to AAR,
has been a distinguished visiting please visit aarome.org/support/
and affiliate research professor planned-giving.
at the University of Maryland,
College Park, since 1998, and
Connections: photograph by Jim Fennel.
Spring/Summer 2021 25IN
The following pages document a sampling
of the scholarly and creative work being
generated by our Rome Prize winners and
THE
Italian Fellows. The ongoing dialogues
and collaboration taking place around the
Academy every day speak to a vibrant
community that strongly impacts how we see
ourselves in the past, present, and future.
FLOW
All photographs by Giorgio Benni.
26 AAR MagazineThe Clothes of Rome engages the theater
of the everyday. Taking a clue from
photographers August Sander, Irving
Penn, and Albrecht Tübke, Brooklyn-
based costume designer Terese Wadden
approached Roman streets as a catalog of
personalities seen through sartorial choice
(fashion/style), necessity (uniform/occu-
pation), and cultural trends (tradition/
immigrant populations). By observing and
documenting the diversity of contempo-
rary Romans, she explored how “type”
can be both celebrated, disassembled,
and recontextualized.
Spring/Summer 2021 27The Taxon Cycle is a quasi-utopian novel
from Alexandra Kleeman of the New School,
written in five parts, about the rise and fall
of money. Each section is set on a different
island and in a different time period: an
Oceanic monarchy ruptured by the arrival
of European explorers, a hermetically
sealed luxury bunker in a waterlogged
near-future metropolis, a Nordic commu-
nity that has inadvertently reverted to sub-
sistence farming and barter, and so on. The
novel considers the island as a place where
nature sets “evolutionary experiments”
into motion and asks if other relationships
between life and necessity could exist in the
absence of capitalism.
The Progetto Ophelia, a psychiatric hos-
pital and residential complex in Potenza
designed in 1905 by Giuseppe Quaroni and
Marcello Piacentini, was an unprecedented
example of empathic design for people with
physical and cognitive differences. In Rome
David Serlin of the University of California,
San Diego worked on Sensory Design and
Architectural Empathy in the “Progetto
Ophelia,” which examines the structure
in relation to architectural sites of Italian
disability history, as well as a forerunner of
contemporary projects that engage inno-
vate multisensory and empathic design.
28 AAR MagazineJennifer Packer’s project focuses on the social, political, and psychological impli- cations of landscape and architecture on conceptions of individual, collective, and national identity, in relationship to African diasporic communities. Landscape is used here to identify physical and histori- cal impositions on our sense of belonging. An assistant professor at Rhode Island School of Design, Packer discusses her work—and its primary influences over the past decade—through remembrance, sentimentality, longing, shame, and grief. Spring/Summer 2021 29
In his Stanford University dissertation, Replication and Difference in Images of “Modest Venus,” 200 BCE–350 CE, Dillon Gisch studies how surviving “replicas” of Praxiteles’s famous Knidian Aphrodite were engaged in contextually dependent dialectics of replication and differentiation in the Roman world. He investigates how premodern Greek and Latin literary sources, Volterran stone ash urns, local bronze coin- ages from the Roman province of Asia, and Syrian bronze statuettes each appropri- ated well-known “modest Venus” types and adapted them to engender different viewer responses. 30 AAR Magazine
Humanist History and Architecture in
Sistine Rome is a book project by Carla
Keyvanian of Auburn University that inves-
tigates the relationship of fifteenth-century
humanist historical theory to architectural
design. Modern scholars view the mon-
umental hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia,
built near the Vatican in the 1470s, as the
product of an uneducated architect.
Carla shows that the hospital, charac-
terized by an architectural proportional
system enabling the harmonious incorpo-
ration of medieval and ancient elements,
was produced by vanguard artists and
intellectuals from the Veneto. That
framework embodied a new philological
understanding of history and exemplified
a northern Italian search for new architec-
tural language.
Rebecca Messbarger’s book project,
Ghostly Light: How Criminal Corpses
Animated the Italian Enlightenment,
explores the Italian Enlightenment move-
ment, or Illuminismo, within the frame-
work of the gallows, which shaped major
political, religious, aesthetic, and med-
ico-scientific reforms across the Italian
peninsula. Focusing on four cultural
capitals—Bologna (a Papal state), Milan
(ruled by Austrian Habsburgs), Florence
(Grand Duke Peter Leopold), and Naples
(Kingdom of the Spanish Bourbons)—this
Washington University in St. Louis profes-
sor demonstrates how the criminal body
was, for each, a recurrent touchstone for
institutional transformation.
Spring/Summer 2021 31Rebecca Levitan’s The Pasquino Group:
Sculpture, Conversation, and Resistance
from Ancient Rome to Renaissance
Italy, her dissertation for the University
of California, Berkeley, uses an ancient
sculptural type to examine how the chang-
ing inhabitants of Rome mobilized a single
monument over two millennia. The com-
position of the Pasquino Group—which
depicts the recovery of a fallen warrior—
derives from Homeric Epic, but the statue
was named after a Renaissance inhabitant
of Rome, cherished by Emperors, and
resented by powerful popes. One frag-
mentary copy of the statue still “speaks” in
Rome today, giving voice to the discon-
tented in the Parione district.
Exploiting Riverine Resources in the
Roman Empire, Christy Q. Schirmer’s
dissertation for the University of Texas
at Austin, examines river fishing in the
Roman provinces to more fully recog-
nize processes of social and economic
change that followed imperial expansion.
Focusing on select river settlements in the
western provinces (the Iberian penin-
sula, Roman Britain) alongside the Tiber
and Nile, Christy combines literary and
documentary sources with archaeologi-
cal evidence to reveal how communities
adapted to changing circumstances that
came with Roman rule.
32 AAR MagazineYou can also read
