Congratulations to CCS majors Ella Conner (focus in Art History with minors in Italian and Museum Studies) and Joce Dolezal (focus in Public Humanities with minors in Art History and Museum Studies)! Both students will present their research at the SUNY New Paltz Undergraduate Art History Symposium in April.
Senior Joce Dolezal will present their paper “Coptic Tunics and Accessing God: The Historical Context and Significance of Dressing the Self with Christ in Byzantine Egypt” on April 12. The paper was the result of an independent research study with Dr. Pratt in fall 2023.
From the sixth to approximately eighth centuries, Christians in Byzantine Egypt — referred to as Coptic Egypt — decorated hundreds of tunics with embroidered scenes and characters from the Old and New Testament books, and most commonly from the Gospels. Influenced by the preceding history of textiles as liminal objects, clothing metaphors within the Christian faith and literature, and the centrality of the body in relating to Christ, these tunics reveal a Coptic desire to access the divine through their physical bodies. Through art historical analysis, I argue in my paper “Coptic Tunics and Accessing God: The Historical Context and Significance of Dressing the Self with Christ in Byzantine Egypt” that these garments are revealed to be a powerful religious medium utilized by Copts to “live out” their faith. Through exploration of the religious applications of Byzantine relics and reliquaries, I further hypothesize the possible ways in which these tunics became active objects in the religious lives of Copts. In this research, I explore how these tunics facilitated the Coptic faith, thus connecting Copts on a physical level to Christ participating in the deeply human desires to access and understand the realm of the divine.
Junior Ella Conner will present her paper “Intersecting Art and Identity: Postcolonial and Post-Soul Aesthetics in Contemporary African and African-American Art.” The paper was the result of a research project in ARH 351 with Dr. Speer in fall 2023.
Postcolonial and Post-Soul Aesthetics in Contemporary African and African-American Art examines the work of Alison Saar, Yinka Shonibare, Kehinde Wiley, and other artists of color in America and abroad. Working in widely divergent media, these figures explore long-standing concepts of postcolonialist consciousness as well as the more recently minted politics of African-American self-representation after the 1960s and 70s (the “post-soul aesthetics” defined by Richard Schur). Art created by these individuals articulates, among other challenges, the integration of black and gender identity into history, art history, and global visual culture.