Embedded Files
We affirm that any social group that includes a tradition of making (i.e., all social groups) also includes both community-held and individual forms of knowledge about both the processes of making and the meaning of its products. In other words, wherever there is art, there is also art history.
All areas of the Department’s long- and short-term goals are served by this knowledge, and by continued and substantive attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this work, we pursue: (1) sustained and meaningful practices of engagement with our own individual limitations relative to the vast knowledge of our field and profession: (2) a consistent acknowledgment that art history -- as both a body of knowledge and as a profession -- will advance only by activating a diverse, equitable, accessible, and inclusive community of participants, and (3) regular actions designed to address the current limitations of our department and realize its expanded communities. It is only through the cooperative building efforts of DEI that both the discipline of art history and the cultural-economic institution of higher education can begin to dismantle their foundational structures of colonialism, exploitation, appropriation, theft, and exclusion.
Department of Art History Resources
Art History Climate Transformation Project
DEI Committee (AY2024-25: Emily Capper, Ashley Duffey, Sara Enfield, Laura Kalba, Yujin Shin, and a representative of the undergraduate program TBD)
Exposing the Hidden Curriculum
UMN Campus Resources
AFFINITY GROUPS: OFFICE FOR EQUITY AND DIVERSITY
Finding community is hard in grad school. Finding community after moving to a new place... also hard. Check out the list of affinity groups sponsored by UMN's Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the link above, and learn more about OED here. (NOTE: many groups indicate that they are open to faculty & staff; as graduate students, you are eligible for membership in most, if not all these groups.)
COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS OFFICE OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY AN INCLUSION
The Twin Cities campus of UMN includes 8 different Colleges. Art History is housed in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA), which boasts an especially active Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE STUDENTS
The UMN Council of International Graduate Students is an organization providing social opportunities, campus advocacy, and research platforms for international students pursuing MA and PhDs across the Minnesota campus.
20% of UMN's graduate student population are first-generation college students. The First-Gen Institute provides resources to grad students. Their website, linked above, is a good way to begin navigating the grad school experience and the UMN campus.
UMN is a national leader in community-based research and engagement models. The Liberal Arts Engagement Hub, recently opened, was established in large part through the leadership of art history Professor Jane Blocker, during her time as CLA Associate Dean for Arts & Humanities. You can also learn more about Minnesota practices of community-based research here.
RIDGS - Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality
RIDGS is a collective of academic departments and faculty and students across campus that pursues research and work centered on histories and experiences shaped by race, indigineity, disability, gender, and sexuality. The group helps to make this research visible on campus, in part by hosting the Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Graduate Student Interest Group.
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