Finding odd Art History Areas of Interest?

[m-ttl]

I'm thumbing through a copy of the caa Directory of Graduate Programs in Art History, and while I know it can't tell me everything, I'm wondering if I'm looking for a lost cause, or just not going about things the right way. I have more than one area of interest I'm looking into pursuing (one is certainly more common), but my more uncommon area of interest is Comics/Graphics/Sequential Art history. 

 

I've got a background in Museums and Art History as my BA, and I have experience with Museums, Galleries, and Comics Conventions. I adore the intersections, am currently doing research for a paper on Conventions as Arts Programming, etc. It would be more than ideal to bring my passionate hobby into the world of my passionate academics. It's probably a bit bizarre for someone who has been considering going down the curatorial route, but I like the subject well enough that I think I could find myself doing a lot with it.

 

I have one problem: as far as I know, only one program exists - the University of Florida has an MA/PhD program in Comics & Visual Rhetoric. It's an English degree, and aside from my university's required courses, I haven't taken excessive english classes since high school. I can see that being a problem if they're strictly interested in scholar's focusing on words over art. I'd be content with combining the two disciplines as thoroughly as I can, and am strongly considering applying anyways. 

 

But I'm still looking for Art History degrees, perhaps in Modern American Art? Should I be stretching out to Visual and Media Studies? Many Modern & Contemporary Art History programs seem to lean away from this sort of Art. Are there ways to figure out if professors/POIs are accepting of this sort of study, or if a program would be flexible enough to allow it? Am I better off just applying to my other Art History area of interest and then having UF be a stand-alone subject in my applications next year? I know fellowships exist, I know academic journals exist, but how can I reverse search for the right schools?

[architecture 604]

What an interesting field! While I really don't know anything about Sequential Art or programs for it, I would suggest also looking at American Studies programs. During my research I noticed that a few programs have people specializing in video games and visual culture, which from their descriptions sounded similar to what you are interested in with Sequential Art. I could have sworn I saw a few people studying graphic novels (I'll look back through my notes to see). Bowling Green State University has an American Popular Culture Department. I would also look at programs that have American Studies and Art History so that you can choose faculty from both, maybe with the American studies focusing on the actual graphic novels and Art History focusing on the more traditional visual analysis. 

 

Also maybe art school which have Art history programs and also have graphic design or illustration or animation departments (I'm unsure what the technical term for comic book design is) as well. Savannah College of Art and Design has both and I know that the graphic design (and others) department has classes in the history and analysis of comics as part of their curriculum. 

 

Good luck!

[asdf123]

Look at Hillary Chute at UChicago -- http://english.uchicago.edu/faculty/chute

 

Between her and WJT Mitchell... etc, the English department is quite concerned with the visual -- and you're able to build a lot of relations with the Art History department.

[m-ttl]

@assassina Well, I have more straightforwards interests as well, (ones that were easy to find a pre-lim scad of programs I'm going to whittle down from thirteen between now and next fall), but this is something I only just realized might be an option. And it would be remiss of me not to pursue it even just a little. I'll look at Bowling Green State, but to be honest, part of my secondary concerns are: Are there accessible museums? and Can I continue to not have a car? What sort of funding do they have? I'm not familiar with the area, or even Ohio, really! So I don't know if that's the case, but the majority of the other schools I've found interest in were FL as an outstanding case (but with friends nearby), New York, Boston, Chicago, D.C., San Fran. (The museums come to play, basically.)

 

SCAD would be an interesting option. 

 

@asdf123 Wow! I do have to say that's all wonderful stuff, but UChi is also notoriously difficult to get into. I guess I shouldn't be surprised (I'm not asking for common fare) but like I said, I have only the most basic English classes.  I'm not already coming in with an MA (which seemed to count against me in the Art History department, anyways) and I guess my big fear with both is competing with folks who have more experience in the field the program is located in. 

 

But Prof. Chute sounds amazing. I'll probably start looking to see how much of her work I already might have read. 

Edited January 30, 2013 by m-ttl

[Guest lefilsdhomme]

FINALLY! I've been waiting for someone else in art history to be into comics as art! As previous posts indicate, the majority of scholarship on comics seems to be done by literary or cultural history scholars. In many cases, Art History (caps intended) remains bound to fictive notions of a cannon and high/low distinctions.

 

While not my primary interest, the consideration of comics as a narrative work of art that bridges language and image, page and space is extremely fascinating to me. (As I posted earlier in the Litterature forum I'm working on a paper that deals with gay erotic comics as a work of art). Are you giving your paper at the CAC by chance?

 

As for studying comics as a primary field of research within an art history department I have a feeling you will run into trouble. Comic studies is a developing field on its own and - from my own experience - appears absent in art history departments. The other posters are correct in saying you would be better served in a Rhetoric, Litterature, American Studies, or other interdisciplinary studies program. That said, a PhD outside of art history would certianly limit, if not exclude, your ability to enter a curatorial position...

 

All that aside, you have a fellow comic studies enthusiast and developing art historian who agrees that this is an understudied field in art history! As for finding out if professors are amenable to the topic for research I would email and ask, the worst they can say is no. Please feel free to PM, I'd love to start a dialogue with you. :]

[m-ttl]

@lefilsdhomme: I'll send you a PM later after I head back home! I'm taking a quick break at my internship because I just moved a few paintings that are bigger than I am...so I took a quick breather on my phone.

I'm not presenting at anything yet. I saw the conference at UF this march (devastatingly while I'm visiting Florida to do a week long spring break stint with a great American Art museum there. So I'll be in the right state, but the wrong city!) but am only just now looking at sending in papers. The paper is actually one I chose to do for my internship credit. I've actually got in touch with the local comics shop by my campus and lucky for me, one of the saleswomen is a PhD student at my uni (in Anthropology/Gender) so she's not only going to be one of my interview sources, she offered to help me with my questionnaire and grad school ideas. I might add an internship with the comics shop and I'm considering asking my current Gallery if I could do anything here...

I do worry about veering completely away from Art History, just because Comic studies is new enough that I can't imagine a lot of careers I could hold with that. I don't pretend museum work is an easy field to get into, but I do have a fair bit of experience and hope to graduate BA with 5-7 internships/jobs in the field. I've already got 4 and am required to take another internship credit...but to eliminate myself from the field means I'd have to figure out where one works with an MA/PhD in comics...

And that could be an avenue Q song waiting to happen, haha.

[2013app]

Hello! You might also want to look into Catherine Labio at University of Colorado Boulder. She is in the English department but is also very interested in word/image relations and does a lot on comics, from a global perspective. Good luck!

[m-ttl]

Thanks. I've been sitting on this, and now I think that the truth of the matter is the majority of people researching Comics are English folk, who, while a close cousin to Art History, aren't quite what I want. People whose brains I'd love to pick, and would love to hear from, but the realism of getting a degree in English when my focus and concentration (and experience) is solidly elsewhere is dismal. Not just in terms of acceptance, but also in terms of what I want to do with my career path. It's a great potential subject of study for my own time, but I'm starting to think I'm better served by finding American Art or East Asian (Chinese) Art programs. (The former because I'm going to be interning briefly with an American Dec Arts Museum and am interested in Dec Arts/American Art, and the latter because I'm currently taking Chinese as a language and an upper division Chinese painting class I'm enjoying.)

 

It's an understudied field, to be sure. There's a wealth to be said and examined, and I've been reading some wonderful things about the transience of comics, the relevance to our culture, the formation of arts cultures around them, the drive of collectors, etc but I won't pretend like I don't have other equally valid interests...or that everyone is ready for a radical shift in a very old field. I don't want to appear flighty or unsure - I know what I don't want, but I'm a flexible and passionate person. If this doesn't exist in my field, I can pursue what does and this in my spare time. I already do that, so I don't really see it as any sort of sacrifice. (I'm also a creative writer, which when I entered college, initially at a small LAC with a strong creative writing program, was something I had to consider. I decided I loved fictional writing as a passionate hobby, not a career choice, and that Museums and Art History were the fields I wanted to work in. It's two very different feelings.)

 

I would rather remain in my field and study something equally interesting, related, or something I could later apply to my personal interests than...leave my field. I'm going back and looking at research interests of professors at Universities I'm considering, and trying to balance my list with places I could get into, and places that match me. 

 

I've found greater luck in looking for American Art/Decorative Art, and East Asian Art by far (and also someone who studies something similar enough that I would be very pleased/excited to work with them - someone who I luckily have an incidental connection with). I'm hoping my classes, internship, and papers this semester will finalize my feelings one way or the other in terms of which field I go into, but I'm assuming I'm looking at a MA rather than a PhD at the moment when I apply next year. (I have a 3.4 overall and a 3.7 in my major which I hope to raise to a 3.5/3.8 but is still not a 3.9 or a 4.0). I also need funding so I'm trying to be mindful of that as well. The need for money puts a big damper on a lot of things, and I've been burned before so I'm putting 100% into my search and my backup plans.

 

Still, I'm a big believer in narrowing my search by elimination and by being flexible but committed. I have other good interests I'm going to look out for. Still, thanks everyone for commenting. It was worth a shot to look, at any rate! But now I know where my real search must be focused on.

Edited February 2, 2013 by m-ttl

[Bearcat1]

Another thing to consider is contemporary Asian art. I don't have any suggestions for faculty to look into, but manga is a huge influence in contemporary Asian art, so my assumption is that it might be taken more seriously if you went that route (as opposed to American art). I have no idea how the funding works, but Sotheby's has MA programs in contemporary and I believe one of them is in Singapore. It might be really expensive, but maybe worth checking out in terms of curriculum. If you were to focus on contemporary Asian art for a PhD, there would be nothing stopping you once you have it from conducting research on American comics. I have a file of "weird" projects I'd like to work on one day that would never fly as a dissertation topic.

[m-ttl]

I actually sat in on a class called Japanese Pop Culture at my University (Art History class), and enjoyed it greatly. Manga and Anime is something I grew up with, particularly because I lived in Singapore when I was very little, and Japanese cartoons were much more accessible/popular in Asia. And don't get me wrong, I like Japanese art, I like manga, I like discussing the nuances of the exchange of artistic influence between America and Japan immediately after WWII, but...I do not like learning Japanese all that much. Perhaps it was mostly the department at my school that was awful, but I found the experience to be headache inducing and unpleasant. The textbook was bad, the department gave us pointless assignments, the grammar was maddening, etc. I had taken it in High School and liked it, but at the college level, it just became...a frustration? For whatever reason.

 

I like my Chinese classes however, enjoy Dynastic Chinese Art, as well as Contemporary Chinese art. I'd also sat in on a Russian Art class for some time and liked the influences on Chinese Socialist Realism, and even North Korean Socialist Realism/"Juche" Art. It's overall something I can work off of/from better. Like I said, I love comics, and think they should be studied, but I won't pretend I don't have 2-3 paper ideas in Chinese Art, or even American Art that aren't about that. 

 

American Art has a large appeal to me because I'm going to intern with an American (mostly dec arts) Museum and I am very interested in American culture and art. I have a lot I think I could do, just in terms of Pop Art, Decorative Arts, American Architecture, etc. 

 

But -- I can't pursue programs that can only maximumly offer half-funding like Sotheby's does. I don't have a lot of money, I've had to pull teeth with my father to get the money he owes me, I've had to take out the max amount of student loans, and then more because I qualify for Parent Plus Denial Loans.... putting myself into even more debt is not just dangerous, it's stupid. $21,000 a term? That's lucky some students have that amount of cash to throw around, but I simply don't. And I've had opportunities denied to me before because I simply don't have the cash, so I'm not throwing my heart into avenues that are just impossible. If I don't end up going to Grad School in 2015, then I'll have to work or join a program like TFA. Simple as that. But taking out another $63,000 in loans? That's more than my undergrad debt.

Edited February 2, 2013 by m-ttl

[JosephineB]

To be brutally honest - I don't think you will have any luck applying to a traditional Art History graduate program with this as your research area. This type of topic is much better suited for a literature or visual/media studies sort of program. The whole point of going to graduate study is to utilize resources that only a university can offer (established professors, libraries, seminars, etc), in order to work towards a desired outcome. It is doubtful that, at this point in time, there is an Art History department that has the resources to support your topic. I'm sure you could find a lower ranked school or some sort of "studies" program that has a POI willing to take on your interest, but if you are concerned about money (which it sounds like you are) this is a dangerous path to go down. It you want to work on a niche topic you have to be a Superstar - near perfect record, recognition, and ability to show command of a more conventional area. I think you have a few options:

 

- Choose a more "conventional" research topic study.  If you are admitted to a program talk with your advisor about how you can cultivate your side interest in Comics/graphics/etc. Once you have fulfilled all of your distribution requirements and are farther into the program, your advisor may support you to write a thesis on the comic book topic.

- Apply to english programs. If this is really the topic that you want to devote 2+ years of study to, this is a much more appropriate discipline.

- Skip graduate school altogether. Even if you are fully funded, there is a good chance that spending 2+ years getting such a niche degree will ultimately be damaging to your finances/ability to get a job. When you are not in graduate school it is difficult to imagine how much of a financial and personal sacrifice even a funded graduate program can be. I would advise anyone against going to graduate school in the humanities unless they are independently wealthy or 100% sure that this degree is the ONLY way they will be able to obtain future employment. 

 

Short version: Take some time off. Think realistically about what job opportunities will be available to you even in the best case scenario. 

[m-ttl]

To be brutally honest - I don't think you will have any luck applying to a traditional Art History graduate program with this as your research area. This type of topic is much better suited for a literature or visual/media studies sort of program. The whole point of going to graduate study is to utilize resources that only a university can offer (established professors, libraries, seminars, etc), in order to work towards a desired outcome. It is doubtful that, at this point in time, there is an Art History department that has the resources to support your topic. I'm sure you could find a lower ranked school or some sort of "studies" program that has a POI willing to take on your interest, but if you are concerned about money (which it sounds like you are) this is a dangerous path to go down. It you want to work on a niche topic you have to be a Superstar - near perfect record, recognition, and ability to show command of a more conventional area. I think you have a few options:

 

- Choose a more "conventional" research topic study.  If you are admitted to a program talk with your advisor about how you can cultivate your side interest in Comics/graphics/etc. Once you have fulfilled all of your distribution requirements and are farther into the program, your advisor may support you to write a thesis on the comic book topic.

- Apply to english programs. If this is really the topic that you want to devote 2+ years of study to, this is a much more appropriate discipline.

- Skip graduate school altogether. Even if you are fully funded, there is a good chance that spending 2+ years getting such a niche degree will ultimately be damaging to your finances/ability to get a job. When you are not in graduate school it is difficult to imagine how much of a financial and personal sacrifice even a funded graduate program can be. I would advise anyone against going to graduate school in the humanities unless they are independently wealthy or 100% sure that this degree is the ONLY way they will be able to obtain future employment. 

 

Short version: Take some time off. Think realistically about what job opportunities will be available to you even in the best case scenario. 

 

I think you missed the multiple times I repeatedly said I have other, more conventional interests I am eager to pursue and consider this only a side-interest option I wanted to explore if there were options for? Sorry, but I'm not sure you understood that I have A.) Decided I really don't have any intention of switching fields, and B.) I also have no interest in taking time off. I'm not yet a senior, I'm taking classes/internships that are in my two major areas of interest that I hope will sway me one way or another by the end of this year (or at least solidify what my MA interests are best suited for).

 

I have found a POI, and one at a school I feel meets all of my potential interests, who studies the Material Culture of Childhood (as well as a few other subjects I'm fascinated by, and recently lectured at a museum I'm going to be interning for). I have a small connection in this respect, I'm more than enthused about material culture/object based study, will have experience in a Museum that focuses on these things, etc. I think I can find plenty of "traditional" things I'm interested in. I have a list of about 16 schools I think would all be suitable for me, all with programs and POIs with traditional subjects I do want to learn.

 

 I don't mean to seem short, and rest assured I'm not trying to sound ungrateful but...

 

Like I said before, I'm more than capable of deciding something is better left as a hobby if it doesn't align with my Academic/Career goals, and I already know what those are. The things that don't align with those goals remain hobbies. I'm intending to re-evaluate my strongest subjects/areas of interest within Art History at the end of this semester and then spend next semester in my research methods class writing for the field I'm choosing to apply to. If one of my multiple papers this semester speaks to me, perhaps by next year I'll have narrowed my focus enough to apply to select PhD programs. But I'm currently happy enough to look at MAs that suit me. I'm already graduating with a Museum Studies degree (at my school it requires more Art History distributional requirements than the Art History degree itself, plus professional classes and two internships in the field), so I'm hoping to find a program that is Art History based with more museum/gallery experience and leanings.

 

I guess I just see no need to take time off simply because I like other things? This seems counter-intuitive to me. Isn't the idea to start a wide search and then narrow it down based on what is viable and what isn't...instead of just stopping the search and loafing at home with your parents to do some "soul-searching"? I have until next year to have a list solidified. This is just preliminary narrowing of the search. It doesn't really seem like a good reason to put on the emergency break and stop on the tracks altogether.

Edited February 5, 2013 by m-ttl

[complexprocedure]

m-ttl, have you considered the University of Rochester's PhD program in Visual and Cultural Studies? I have a feeling that your interests would be more than welcome there.

 

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I recommend you pursue what you're interested in and passionate about. Graduate degrees are a long haul. Dedicating the level of time and effort that is required to make academic progress around a subject which only half-suits you is more than an uphill battle; it's wasting precious time on what you could be pursing when you find the academic home that suits you. Don't stop until you find that place.

[poliscar]

I'm having trouble understanding your obsession with your "field." Is it because you're afraid of being at a disadvantage in the case that you apply to programs outside of it? I don't want this to sound like an attack or anything, but I think you should let go of rigid ideas of "field." Obviously there are some more conservative Art History and English programs that do adhere to the idea, but there are also many programs that fully expect cross-disciplinary work. It seems like a lot of what you're afraid of is based on presumptions that don't necessarily apply, like the idea of English programs being "strictly interested in scholars focusing on words over art." 

To add on to this, I would be careful about making the assumptions that a) "traditional" programs are more likely to lead you to further career opportunities, and you're better equipped to enter "traditional" programs, as they're just as competitive as "non-traditional programs." Doctoral programs in Chinese art, for example, are going to want reading knowledge in at least two asian languages—you may need to pick up Japanese again. American programs aren't necessarily going to have the same language requirements, but they're going to be competitive as well. 

Why not drop the obsession with "traditional fields" and look at more interdisciplinary programs? Brown and NYU have super cool media studies programs, Berkeley Rhetoric, Stanford Modern Thought and Lit, UCI and UCSC Visual Studies... potentially American Studies programs? Even the English programs you seem to dread can be quite interdisciplinary. For some reason you seem to have decided your initial research interests aren't "viable," even though there are so many potentially fantastic programs. 

 

[condivi]

Why not drop the obsession with "traditional fields" and look at more interdisciplinary programs? Brown and NYU have super cool media studies programs, Berkeley Rhetoric, Stanford Modern Thought and Lit, UCI and UCSC Visual Studies... potentially American Studies programs? 

 

I'm not sure about this. The advice I was given, by a number of professors, is that it's best to stay in a traditional field. Interdisciplinary programs are often very interesting and innovative, but they put graduates at a disadvantage come job-search time. Few universities have a rhetoric department or a visual studies department, so you won't be hired by those departments but by an English or Art History department. In general, departments want people with a solid disciplinary background so they can teach foundational courses. I've been told they worry that graduates from interdisciplinary programs aren't qualified to teach them. And, sad but true, *there can be* a certain amount of defensiveness or territoriality from professors from traditional departments towards interdisciplinary programs. In brief, if you want a degree from an interdisciplinary program, you'd better be sure you're pretty damn exceptional.

[poliscar]

I'm not sure about this. The advice I was given, by a number of professors, is that it's best to stay in a traditional field. Interdisciplinary programs are often very interesting and innovative, but they put graduates at a disadvantage come job-search time. Few universities have a rhetoric department or a visual studies department, so you won't be hired by those departments but by an English or Art History department. In general, departments want people with a solid disciplinary background so they can teach foundational courses. I've been told they worry that graduates from interdisciplinary programs aren't qualified to teach them. And, sad but true, *there can be* a certain amount of defensiveness or territoriality from professors from traditional departments towards interdisciplinary programs. In brief, if you want a degree from an interdisciplinary program, you'd better be sure you're pretty damn exceptional.

I think the standard now if you want a tenure track job anywhere is to be damn exceptional