In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing
Episodes
The Evidentiary and the Black Body
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this final episode of the miniseries, Erica Moiah James speaks with her friend and colleague, Sora Han. Erica and Sora were fellows at the Clark Ar...
Creole in the Archive
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Erica Moiah James talks with Roshini Kempadoo, media artist, photographer, and scholar, whose book Creole in the Archive: Imagery, ...
Connoisseurship and the Work of Naming
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fashion and the Construction of Race
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second episode of this miniseries, Portrait of a Young Woman, Erica Moiah James discusses the importance of fashion in understanding this portr...
Curating History and Race
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of our new miniseries, Erica Moiah James introduces the 18th-century pastel Portrait of a Young Woman, shares her experience fir...
“Fragmentary Ruins and the Enduring Image”: Cammy Brothers on Drawing as a Way of Thinking
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this final episode of the season focused on the craft of writing, Sara Houghteling (special projects coordinator in the Research and Academic Progr...
"A Critique of What Art Can Do”: Jennifer Nelson on Undoing Mastery
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Sara Houghteling (special projects coordinator in the Research and Academic Program) speaks with Jennifer Nelson, a poet and scholar ...
“To Give Shape to a Way of Seeing the Past”: Shira Brisman on the Intimacy of Writing the History of Social Art
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this continuation of a season focused on the craft of writing in art history, Sara Houghteling (special projects coordinator in the Research and Ac...
“The Magic Art of Framing”: Alexander Nemerov on Writing History and Making a World
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first episode of a new season focused on the craft of writing in art history. Sara Houghteling (special projects coordinator for the Resea...
"On Living Archives": Tsedaye Makonnen on Collaboration and Black Performance Practices
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program) speaks with artist and curator Tsedaye Makonnen about her m...
"Attention Becomes a Kind of Politics": Sarah Hamill on Sculpture and Interpretation
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this week episode Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program) speaks with Sarah Hamill, a scholar of modern and conte...
“Shifting Focal Points”: Sergei Tcherepnin on Sonic Attention
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program) speaks with Sergei Tcherepnin, an artist who works in the i...
“What ‘Minor' Histories Allow Us to See”: Donette Francis on Writing African Diaspora
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program) speaks with Donette Francis, an Associate Professor of Engl...
"I Never Start with Nothing": Mary Lum on Collage and Constructed Geographies
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark) speaks with Mary Lum, a visual artist based in...
“An Outward-Looking Model”: The Future(s) of the University and Higher Education in a Digital Age with Koenraad Brosens and Blake Stimson
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, guest interviewer Anne Helmreich (The Getty Foundation) speaks with Koenraad Brosens, professor of art history at the University of L...
“What are Our Important Questions?”: Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity in a Digital Age with Jacqueline Francis and Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, guest interviewer Paul B. Jaskot (Duke University) speaks with Jacqueline Francis, a scholar of contemporary art and chair of the Gra...
“To Make Visible the Structures”: Challenging the Canon, Digital and Beyond, with Niall Atkinson and Min Kyung Lee
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, guest interviewer Anne Helmreich (Getty Foundation) speaks with Niall Atkinson, associate professor of art history at the University ...
“Distance and Criticality”: The Digital Humanities and the Potential for Art History Scholarship with Hubertus Kohle and Emily Pugh
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paul B. Jaskot (Duke University) speaks with Hubertus Kohle (professor of art history at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany) and Emily ...
“Directed Towards How We See Ourselves”: Social Art History in a Digital World with Paul B. Jaskot and Barbara McCloskey
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This fourth season of In the Foreground is a special series of five roundtable conversations dedicated to “the Grand Challenges” – a phrase fr...
“A Mechanism for Survival”: McClain Groff on nibia pastrana santiago’s NO MORE EFFORTS
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Puerto Rican multidisciplinary artist nibia pastrana santiago’s video NO MORE EFFORTS (2020) uses humor, dance, and site-specificity to critique con...
“A Picture of Resilience”: Ashley Lazevnick on Charles Demuth’s "Red Poppies"
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A still life, like a poem, may be charged with private meaning, and yet it is offered like a gift that the viewer may open for themselves, not unlike ...
“An Expression of the Poetic Self”: Yuefeng Wu on the Stele Inscription of the Jiu-Cheng Palace
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Jiu-Cheng Palace Stele inscription, created in China in 632, during the early Tang dynasty, is an influential work of Chinese calligraphy that emb...
“From Imitation to Evolution”: Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen on Georges Seurat’s "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte–1884"
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Georges Seurat’s masterpiece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte–1884, is the kind of painting that has become so ubiquitous it almost disappears into its...
“An Allegory of Representation”: Byron Otis on Gabriel Metsu’s "View into a Hall with a Jester, a Boy, and his Dog"
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gabriel Metsu's painting View into a Hall with a Jester, a Boy, and his Dog from c. 1667 subtly upends expectations of Dutch genre painting from ...
"Touching at a Distance”: Ellen Tani on Nadine Robinson’s "Coronation Theme: Organon"
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nadine Robinson’s installation Coronation Theme: Organon of 2008 uses its monumental sculptural presence and an immersive soundscape to weave comp...
“Between the Personal and the Historical”: Asma Naeem on Listening to Art and Visual Culture
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Asma Naeem, the Eddi...
“The Ethics of Seeing”: Kaira M. Cabañas on Creative Care and Art’s Histories
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, which continues the miniseries focused on sound, media, and visual art, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Acade...
“Grounded by a Set of Relations”: Nancy Um on "Horizontal" Cultures within Art History
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Nancy Um, professor of art hi...
“To Approach the Object from Outside”: Joseph Koerner on History, Trauma, and Wonder
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Joseph Leo Koerner, professor...
“To See the Effects of Sound”: Niall Atkinson on Acoustic Topographies of the Early Modern
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) continues the miniseries on soun...
“What a Picture Can’t Offer”: Michael Gaudio on the Imaginative Work of Sound in Art History
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) continues the miniseries on soun...
“How Do We Know What We Know?”: Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi on Fieldwork and Evidence
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Alice Matthews ('21 graduate of the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art) speaks with Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi, asso...
“Becoming Belonged”: Roberto Tejada on the Political Project of Photography and Poetry
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caro Fowler (Starr Director, Research and Academic Program) speaks with Roberto Tejada, a poet and art historian who in a professor in...
“What Sort of Problems Does an Artwork Pose?”: Joan Kee on Art History as an Infinite Game
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Joan Kee, professor of art h...
“Always About to Take Place”: Glenn Peers on the Byzantine Fresco Chapel
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute presents In the Foreground: Object Studies: short meditations that introduce you to a s...
“The Status of the Human”: Amy Freund on the First French Hunting Portrait
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute presents In the Foreground: Object Studies: short meditations that introduce you to a s...
“The Erosion of History”: Samantha Page on Hung Liu’s “Migrant Mother”
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute presents In the Foreground: Object Studies: short meditations that introduce you to a s...
“A Rebuke to Polite Masculinity”: Charles Keiffer on Thomas Patch’s “British Gentlemen at Sir Horace Mann’s Home in Florence”
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute presents In the Foreground: Object Studies: short meditations that introduce you to a s...
“The Color of Emergency”: Joan Kee on Chao-Chen Yang’s “Apprehension”
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute presents In the Foreground: Object Studies: short meditations that introduce you to a s...
“It Looks like How Jazz Sounds”: Jordan Horton on Romare Bearden's “The Dove”
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute presents In the Foreground: Object Studies: short meditations that introduce you to a s...
“‘Others’ of Various Kinds”: J. Vanessa Lyon on Intersectionality as an Early Modern Scholar
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with J. Vanessa Lyon, who is o...
“Where the Impossible is Possible”: Saundra Weddle and Lisa Pon on Collaboration and Renaissance Studies
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with two scholars of Renaissan...
"One's Own Bifurcations": Lorraine O'Grady on Both/And Thinking in Art
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Lorraine O’Grady, an artis...
“Moving Across the Threshold“: Alisa LaGamma on Curating the Arts of Africa
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Alisa LaGamma, a speciali...
“Sound is a Dimension of Reality”: Robin James on Theorizing Sound, Race, and Gender
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode in the mini-series focused on sound, art, and media, Caitlin Woolsey (Manton Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research and Academic Program ...
“Perception is a Form of Sampling": Christoph Cox on Materialities of Sound
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode from the mini-series focused on sound and art, Caitlin Woolsey (Manton Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research and Academic Program at the...
“The Sound Can Touch You Directly”: Christina Kubisch on Electronic Sound Art
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode from the mini-series focused on sound, media, and art, Caitlin Woolsey (Manton Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research and Academic Progra...
“When is This?”: Brian Michael Murphy on Media Archaeology and Preservation
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first of a series of four episodes focused on sound, media, and art, in which Caitlin Woolsey (Manton Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research ...
“A Database is an Argument”: Anne Helmreich on Digital Humanities and Art History
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Anne Helmreich, an art hi...
“A Gesture of Reciprocity”: Souleymane Bachir Diagne on Translation and Restitution
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Souleymane Bachir Diagne,...
“Unpacking My Identity”: Genevieve Gaignard on Race in America and the Impossibility of Home
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Genevieve Gaignard, a Los...
“How to Look with Soft Eyes”: Darby English on Description as Method
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of Season 2 of In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing, Caroline Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academ...
“Philosophical Grounding”: Michael Ann Holly on Creating Visual Studies
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Michael...
"Can You Show Thinking?”: Mieke Bal on Film & Writing
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Mieke B...
"Refusal of Personality": Brigid Doherty on Rosemarie Trockel and Rorschach
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Brigid ...
“Looking as Knowing”: Svetlana Alpers on Critical Thinking and Photography
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Svetlan...
“An Art History Yet to Come”: Kirsten Scheid on Palestinian Art
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Kirsten...
“A Set of Ways of Engaging”: Lisa Lee on Thomas Hirschhorn & Materiality
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler speaks with Lisa Lee, Associate Professor of Art History at Emory University and Florence Gould Foun...
“An Embodiment of Experience”: Steven Nelson on African Art and Writing History
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler speaks with Steven Nelson, who in March 2020 was named Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the ...
“To Speak Across Time”: Gabriele Finaldi on Museums
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with art his...
“An Archive of Exchange”: C. Ondine Chavoya on Chicanx and Latinx Art History
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with C. Ondi...
“Surfaces of Projection”: Dell M. Hamilton on Performance Art and Black Embodiment
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Dell M....
“The Nature of All Our Forms”: María Magdalena Campos-Pons on Performance Art
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the inaugural episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks wit...