The Mark Roskill Symposium in Art History is an interdisciplinary symposium organized annually by the graduate students in History of Art and Architecture, named in honor of Mark Roskill (1933-2000). Roskill was an art historian and scholar of art historiography and criticism who taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for over 30 years. Educated at Harvard and Princeton Universities, he began as a specialist in the Italian Renaissance, but continued throughout his career to write widely on then-emerging fields, including photography, English painting, and Cubism. Among his numerous publications is an influential methodological text, What is Art History? (1976).
Save the Date for the 26th Roskill Symposium:
Art Without Barriers: Disability, Accessibility, & the Arts
Friday, September 19th, 2025
The 2025 Mark Roskill Symposium, Art Without Barriers: Disability, Accessibility, & the Arts, will examine the intersections of disability and the arts, with a particular focus on questions of access and inclusion. Through a keynote address and panel discussion, the symposium aims to challenge ableist assumptions and promote a more expansive and inclusive approach to art history.
- Refreshments will be served from 2:00–2:30 p.m.
- The keynote will begin at 2:30 p.m.
- A panel discussion and audience Q&A will follow.
- The event will conclude by 5:00 p.m., allowing time to attend the opening of A City in Flux: Reflecting on Venice at the Smith College Museum of Art (5:00–7:00 p.m.).
The keynote speaker will be Andrew Leland, writer, audio producer, and author of The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight—a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir. Leland’s talk will expand on the themes of chapter five, “Camera Obscura,” a thoughtful reflection on his—and the broader blind community’s—relationship to art and long-held assumptions about perception, interpretation, and self-expression.
Following the keynote, a panel of esteemed respondents will offer reflections:
- Jina B. Kim, Assistant Professor of English and the Study of Women & Gender, Smith College
- Charlene Shang Miller, Educator for Academic Programs, Smith College Museum of Art
- Finnegan Shannon, Brooklyn-based artist experimenting with forms of access
Previous Themes & Keynote Speakers
The 2024-25 Roskill Symposium, "Colonial Fragments: Overlooked Art Histories," featured keynote speaker Dr. Romita Ray of Syracuse University as well as three to four graduate student presentations on the topic of the colonial fragment.
On Saturday, March 8, 2025, the second-year cohort—Yarra Berger, Isaiah LaGrand, Sherry Shang, Yuqing Tao, and Olivia White—proudly presented the Annual Mark Roskill Symposium in Art History: "Colonial Fragments: Overlooked Art Histories." The event was held at the Old Chapel on UMass Amherst campus from 10am to 3pm.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Romita Ray of Syracuse University, who presented a paper titled "'Joyous Howling': Jungli Fragments and Tea Plantations."
The symposium also featured four graduate student paper presentations (in order of appearance):
Hadley Newton of CUNY Graduate Center presented "Double Agent: Ben Enwonwu and his 1950 Exhibition at Howard University."
Michael Biard of UNC Chapel Hill presented "Making Space in "Ugandan" Art: Pamela Enyonu's Ateker, ijasi biyayi? and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa's Paradise."
Sarah Zhang of UMass Amherst (first-year MA student in the HAA program!) presented "British Naturalists and the Chinese Merchant's Garden: An Encounter Between Two Systems of Knowledge."
Debarati Sarkar of CUNY Graduate Center presented "'My Black Servant Juba': Joshua Reynolds' Earliest South Asian Ayah Portrait in Eighteenth-Century Imperial Britain."
Each presentation had Q&A panels, and after the keynote address in the afternoon all four graduate presenters were welcomed to the stage with Dr. Ray to discuss the day's presentations.
The 2024-25 Roskill Symposium would not have been possible without the generous support of the UMass Advancing Community, Democracy, and Dialogue Grant; the History of Art & Architecture Department; and the Smith College Art Department. Thank you to our sponsors and to the great many people who attended!
Photos of the event can be viewed on the Department's Flickr page.
Every year, the second-year cohort of graduate students in the History of Art and Architecture at UMass plans the Mark Roskill Symposium. For the fall 2023 symposium, the cohort presented TRANS* AFTER TRANS: Unmaking Gender, featuring keynote speaker Professor Jack Halberstam and Five College panelists Jen Manion, RJ Messineo, Ren-yo Hwang, and Cameron Awkward-Rich.
On behalf of a trans project on destitution, Halberstam wants to use the language of dismantling, unbuilding, and absence to envision a different mode of representation for the trans body. By referencing the works of Yves Laris Cohen, Kiyan Williams, Cathie Opie, and Del LaGrace Volcano, we can find abstract strategies of representation that invert the body, and work within the wreckage, as a way of revealing the labor of change, the effort that goes into trying to pull alternative systems out of and into the ruins of contemporary culture.
Professor of Gender Studies and English at Columbia University, Jack Halberstam is the author of seven books including: Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Duke UP, 1995); Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998); In A Queer Time and Place (NYU Press, 2005); The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011); Gage Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon Press, 2012); Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance (University of California Press, 2018); and Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire (Duke UP, 2020).
Jen Manion is the Winkley Professor of History and Political Economy (History and Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies) at Amherst College.
RJ Messineo makes paintings involving observation and abstraction, and currently lives and works in Greenfield, MA.
Ren-yo Hwang is an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Race and Political Economy at Mount Holyoke College.
Cameron Awkward-Rich is an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The Roskill Symposium would not be possible without the generous support of the following sponsors:
- The Walter Denny Fund
- Rand Distinguished Lectures Fund
- University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMass Amherst
- The University of Massachusetts Graduate School
- Amherst College Departments of English, Sexuality, Women’s & Gender Studies and History
- Mount Holyoke College Departments of English and Art History
- University of Massachusetts at Amherst Departments of History of Art & Architecture, English, History, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies
- Smith College Department of the Study of Women & Gender
Group photo of students and panelists. Back row, left to right: Roya Peighambarzadeh, Jack Halberstam, Simone Cambridge, Alex Tievy, Lawrence Gianangeli. Front row, left to right: Jen Manion, Rebekah Rennick, Piper Prolago, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Ren-yo Hwang. Photo by Roya Peighambarzadeh.
Roskill Symposium panel, left to right: Jack Halberstam, Jen Manion, Ren-yo Hwang, RJ Messineo, Cameron Awkward-Rich. Photo by Olivia White.
The Department of History of Art and Architecture is hosting the second annual Mark Roskill Symposium on Wednesday, Sept. 21, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Amherst Women’s Club.
The 2022 annual Mark Roskill Symposium presents “The Witching Hour: Occultism and Magic in Visual Culture.” Interdisciplinary at its core, this symposium aims to recognize the relevance of spiritual practices that have shaped history and culture, a conversation that will be enriched through the lens of contemporary feminism.
The symposium will feature public scholar Pam Grossman– writer, curator, and teacher of magical history. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, TIME.com, and many more widely-read publications. Grossman is the host of The Witch Wave podcast, co-organizer of the biennial Occult Humanities Conference at New York University, associate editor of Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies, and co-founder of the Brooklyn arts and lecture space observatory, where her programming explored mysticism via a scholarly yet accessible approach.
For this event, she will be presenting her lecture “Witch Pictures,” which overviews how visual representations of witches and magic intersect with changing historical attitudes towards minoritized genders. Grossman’s talk will be expanded upon by three scholars from within the Five College network: Debbie Felton, classic, UMass Amherst; Alexis Callender, art, Smith College; and Natasha Staller, art history, Amherst College.
The event will take place at the iconic Amherst Woman’s Club, whose Victorian architecture creates the perfect intimate and intriguing atmosphere for this year’s conversation. The Woman’s Club supports our mission of accessibility to the Five College campuses and the surrounding community. This location is walkable from campus and is located right off the PVTA bus routes 30 and 33. If other arrangements for transportation would be necessary, please contact the department at the email listed to the left of this page.
Esselon Café catering will be served from 5:30 to 6 p.m., after which the symposium will begin.
The event can be accessed via the following Zoom link: https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/95223181033
22nd Annual Mark Roskill Symposium
By Nicholas Dahle, First year MA student | Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Every year the second-year graduate students of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, organize a symposium and invite a guest speaker to give a presentation followed by a scholarly discussion with selected panelists. The keynote lecture for the Fall 2021 Roskill symposium was given by Professor Charmaine A. Nelson, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The keynote lecture was entitled, “He is remarkable for…wearing a Handkerchief tied round his Head”: Resistance as Escape and Cultural Retention in the Canadian Fugitive Slave Archive. The lecture abstract is as follows:
Scholarship on Transatlantic Slavery has long benefited from the often-exhaustive data published in the fugitive slave archive. Ubiquitous throughout the transatlantic world, fugitive slave advertisements were commonly placed by slave owners seeking to recapture enslaved people who had fled. Such notices commonly provided specific, invasive detail about an enslaved person’s body, dress, skills, languages, and even gestures and mannerisms. Fugitive slave advertisements were complex and contradictory. Such notices were written by white slave owners who documented enslaved flight and sought both to justify slavery and to recapture the enslaved. However, the advertisements also routinely disclosed the bravery, intelligence, and resilience of those who ran away, alongside elements of their cultural practices; their retention of African traditions, and their adaptation under the burden of creolization. This lecture will explore the weaponization of the visual culture of print across the Americas as a technology of white supremacy and a source of ongoing trauma for the enslaved. It will also examine, recuperate, and interpret traces of slave culture and self-care which were disclosed in print.
Professor Nelson’s lecture was complemented by commentary from the panelists: Professor Dwight Carey (Art History, Amherst College), Professor Anne E. Kerth (Afro-American Studies, UMass) and Professor Daphne Lamothe (English, Smith College).
After the symposium, a dinner was hosted by the second-year graduate students, where both faculty and graduate students conversed with the keynote speaker and panelists.
The Mark Roskill Symposium is an interdisciplinary symposium annually organized and hosted by the graduate cohort in the History of Art and Architecture department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This year’s symposium, “Reduction, Regeneration, Restoration: Art as Agent in the Age of Climate Crisis,” will be held on October 3rd, 2020, from 1-4:30pm through Zoom.
The event will begin with architect, artist, and designer Jonathan Fogelson’s keynote address: “Michael Singer: Regenerative Design in the Public Realm.” Michael Singer’s work has been instrumental in transforming public art, architecture, landscape, and planning projects into successful models for urban and ecological renewal. These works provide elements that foster new growth and life, retain and cleanse water, and are respectful of site, culture, and history.
Following the keynote address by Mr. Fogelson, participants will be invited to engage in a series of guided conversations connected to the themes of the symposium. Please see the attached flyers for descriptions of these three short discussions and for the complete symposium schedule.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us at @email or @email. We look forward to your response, and we hope to see you on October 3rd!
The 20th annual Mark Roskill Symposium will be held in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the UMass art history graduate program and ask the question: how does thinking the “global” allow us to position ourselves outside of mainstream art histories and perhaps give us leverage to reconsider those very histories? Dr. Orianna Cacchione, Curator of Global Contemporary Art at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum, will give the keynote talk, focusing on two museum exhibition case studies. After Dr. Cacchione’s presentation, Jennifer Allen-Atkinson, Director of Collections Management at the Harvard Art Museums; Dr. Yael Rice, Assistant Professor at Amherst College; and Dr. Hyewon Yi, Director of the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY Old Westbury - all alumnae of the UMass art history department - will join for a roundtable discussion. Refreshments will be available. This event is free and open to the public.
Please join the University of Massachusetts Amherst History of Art and Architecture graduate students for the 19th Annual Mark Roskill Symposium in Art History, Artificial Selections: Art, Natural History, and the Taxonomy of the Museum. The symposium will consist of a lecture, panel discussion, and exhibition tour that will illuminate the ways in which a shared history of curiosity, collection and categorization influences, informs, enhances or problematizes our study of art and science. The keynote talk will be given by Assistant Professor of Architecture and History, Elisa Kim of Smith College. Additionally, commentary from panelists Rachel Jirka, College Archivist at Amherst College; Elizabeth Bradley, Program Coordinator at the Emily Dickinson Museum; and Cheryl Harned, a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts will make for a fascinating discussion.
"Apsáalooke Feminist #2"
series: "Apsáalooke Feminist"
Join us for an in-depth discussion on the topics of colonialism, resistance, and repatriation. This symposium explores the cutting edge of what artists, museum professionals, and scholars are doing to promote justice for Native American communities, both in the art world and beyond. Keynote will be contemporary artist, Wendy Red Star, and a panel discussion with Cinnamon Catlin-Legukto, President/CEO of the Abbe Museum and Dr. Sonya Atalay, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UMass-Amherst will follow. After the panel, a reception will be held in the Campus Center in Room 162.
This symposium was supported by the generosity of:
UMass-Amherst Department of Art: Visiting Artist Committee, UMass-Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts, UMass-Amherst Department of the History of Art and Architecture, UMass-Amherst Graduate School, Mount Holyoke College Art History Department, Amherst College Art and the History of Art Deparment, UMass-Amherst Department of Anthropology, Smith College Department of Art, and Smith College Department of History.
This program was also made possible (in part) by a grant from the UMass Arts Council.
Historic house museums offer a unique, more personal experience of the past -- an experience both valuable, and at risk. In recent years, many historic houses have faced increasingly dire economic obstacles, including a declining number of visitors and sparse funding. Concerns of social and cultural relevancy, and reactivation of the visitor experience are likewise of central importance. Historic house museums are particularly significant to the five college community and our immediate regional surroundings. Our symposium unites representatives from diverse institutions to discuss contemporary issues surrounding historic house museums.
Frank Vagnone, co-author of Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums, will present a keynote address on the larger issues of preservation and small cultural institutions, based on his experience with historic house museums. Following the keynote will be a roundtable discussion moderated by Tim Rohan, Assistant Professor of the History of Architecture at UMass Amherst, with panelists from loca institutions, including: Jane Wald, executive director at Amherst College’s Emily Dickinson House Museum; Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association; Anne Lanning, Vice President for Museum Affairs at Historic Deerfield; and Barbara Matthews, Public Historian at Historic Deerfield.
A networking reception will cap off the symposium following the panel discussion.
Symposium Itinerary
Keynote Address
Dr. Anne Umland, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Roundtable Discussion
Dr. Bradley Bailey (Amherst College), Dr. Sonja Drimmer (UMass Amherst), Sara Greenberger Rafferty (Hampshire College), moderated by Dr. Karen Koehler (Hampshire College)
Networking Reception
Marriott Room, Campus Center, 11th Floor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The 16th Annual Mark Roskill Symposium will be comprised of a 30-minute presentation by keynote speaker Dr. Anne Umland, the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, followed by a roundtable discussion with Sara Greenberger Rafferty (Hampshire College), Dr. Sonja Drimmer (UMass Amherst), Dr. Bradley Bailey (Amherst College), and moderated by Dr. Karen Koehler (Hampshire College).
The symposium will investigate how the contemporary curatorial economy requires scholars, museums, and artists to consider their digital and analog engagement with art. Panelists will consider how the experience of art is enhanced through new media and digital technologies, how digital space is being used for exhibition purposes, and what new discursive educational, curatorial, and artistic practices have successfully emerged from the integration of these media-based practices into their professional lives.
Beyond the Page and the Gallery:
Reading, Viewing, and the Mediated Platform
Generously sponsored by Hampshire College
Thursday, September 24
5 - 6:30 pm
East Lecture Hall, Franklin Patterson Hall
Hampshire College
Peter J. Russo, director of Triple Canopy and founding member of Common Practice New York and Matthew Battles, associate director of metaLAB at Harvard and the creator of Curarium, will participate in a panel discussion.
Many thanks to the Five College Lecture Fund, the Graduate School at UMass, the Fine Arts Center at UMass, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at UMass, the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass, the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at Hampshire College, Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum, Smith College Museum of Art (The Ann Weinbaum Solomon '59 Fund) and the Art Department at Smith College for their generous support of this event.
The MA candidates in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are pleased to host the 15th Annual Mark Roskill Symposium, In the City: Identity and Urban Spaces
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Carmenita Higginbotham, University of Virginia, McIntire Department of Art
From the ancient Roman city-states to the 21st century globalized metropolis, the urban citizen has been both an individual entity and part of a larger civic collective. The city has served as both home and inspiration for a multitude of artists and designers, who use the setting as a lens through which to wrestle with the complicated ideas of personal identity. IN THE CITY seeks to ask: how does one's work or place within the city affect his artistic representation? How do separate identities of public citizen and private individual conflict with one another? How do these identities also work together through artistic and architectural representation to inform ideas of both civic and personal relationships?
Symposium Itinerary
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Carmenita Higginbotham will present a keynote address on the representation of black urban labor by American realist painters of the 1930s.
Hercules and David:
Heroes as Civic Symbolism in Quattrocento Florence
Amanda Wood, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Walt Kuhn the Showman:
Emily Mecwan-Upright, San Jose State University
Panoramas and Progeny:
Intersections of Virtue and Civic Pride in 17th Century Dutch Family Portraits
Denise Digiannino, University of Kansas
Remembrance and Erasure:
The Problems of Memorializing the End of the Cold War in Berlin, Warsaw and Gdansk
Ewa Matycyzk, Boston University