University Seminar in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Founded by Douglas Fraser in 1970, this seminar addresses major issues in the fields of African, Oceanic, Native American, and pre-Hispanic Latin American arts. The seminar provides an opportunity for members to analyze, evaluate, and discuss new and continuing research, as well as various trends in scholarship. Because the membership is comprised of art historians, curators, archeologists, anthropologist, and other field specialists, seminar meetings frequently involve indepth discussions of theoretical and methodological issues.

Graduate students in the art history and archaeology of Africa, Oceania, or the Americas, who are interested in serving as this seminar's Rapporteur, an hourly position funded by the University Seminars office, should email a statement of interest to Prof. Strother and Prof. Trever by February 15, for consideration for the following academic year.

2021 – 2022

All 2021–22 presentations will be held on Zoom and will begin at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

November 11, 2021 to be rescheduled
Allison Caplan
Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture, UC Santa Barbara
"Body, Remembered: The Concept of Skin in Nahua Lost-Wax Gold Casting"

February 3rd, 2022
Abayomi Ola
Associate Professor, Department of Art & Visual Culture, Spelman College

March 3rd, 2022
Matthew Francis Rarey
Associate Professor, Art History, Oberlin College
"Mapping Marronage: A Fugitive Landscape in Colonial Brazil, September 1763"

April 7th, 2022
Ingrid Ahlgren
Curator of Oceanic Collections, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
"Covering and Revealing: The Social Lives of Marshall Islands Mats and Mat Collections"

2020 – 2021

2019 – 2020

2018 – 2019

2017 – 2018

2016 – 2017

2015 – 2016

2014 – 2015

Fall 2013

Spring 2013

2011 – 2012