Barbara Larson
Dept. of Art
11000 University Parkway
University of West Florida
Pensacola, FLA 32514
850-474-2482
e-mail: [email protected]
Academic Appointments
Current
Professor of Art History, Modern European Art, University of
West Florida (2014-)
Associate Professor (2007-2014)
Assistant Professor (2005-2007)
1997-2005
Assistant Professor of Art History, Modern European Art, Syracuse U.
1996-1997
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History, Northern Michigan U.
Education
1996
New York University, PhD.
Dissertation: “Odilon Redon: Science and Fantasy in the Noirs”
(B.A., Art History, Anthropology, Northwestern U.)
Fellowships, Awards, and Honors
2014
UWF faculty grant ($2,000 for research on Gallé and botany)
2012
MacGeorge Fellowship, University of Melbourne (for research on
Gauguin, race, and Tahitian religious practice)
2011
UWF faculty grant ($2,000 for research on Redon and WWI)
2010
UWF faculty grant ($2,000 for research on Delaunay at St.-Séverin)
2009
UWF faculty grant ($2,000 for research on Darwin and the sublime)
2006
National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend
($5,000 for research on Monet’s cathedrals)
2004
Iris and Gerald B. Cantor Grant ($6,000 for research on Rodin’s Gates of
Hell)
2003
Millard Meiss Foundation Publication Award, College Art Association
($6,000 for The Dark Side of Nature: Science, Society and the Fantastic in
the Work of Odilon Redon)
2003
College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Award, Syracuse
University ($10,000 subsidy for purchase of photos for book on Redon)
2000
College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Fund, Syracuse
University ($7,250 for research on The Dark Side of Nature)
1998
College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Fund, Syracuse
University ($4,000 for research on book)
1996
Faculty Development Grant, Northern Michigan University ($1,000)
1993-95
Institute of Fine Arts Fellowship ($20,000 for dissertation writing)
1993
Lila Acheson Wallace Fellowship ($5,000 for dissertation research)
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1990-91
1990
1989-90
1987-89
Institute of Fine Arts Fellowship ($10,000 for coursework and support)
Theodore Rousseau Fellowship ($5,000 for summer research abroad)
Benjamin Sonnenberg Fellowship ($10,000 for coursework and support)
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, ($30,000 for research)
Research Areas
Science and visual culture in modern Europe, Symbolism
Specializations: medicine, evolutionism, Darwinism, brain science
Current Research Project
Brain, Soul, and Sensorium in Art of Early Third Republic France
Chapters: From a Religious to a Secular Society?; Brain and Soul,
Descartes to 1914; Rodin’s Gates of Hell, Monet’s Rouen Cathedral
series, Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are
We Going?, James Tissot’s Life of Christ series, Delaunay at St. Séverin
Books
2013 Darwin and Theories of Aesthetics and Cultural History, lead editor with an
introduction and chapter, Ashgate Press
Reviews: C. Hartney, Literature and Aesthetics, Dec. 2013, 143-44
R. Ebbatson, Victoriographies, 2014, 154-6
B. Rasmussen, Victorian Studies, Spring 2015, 535-7
2009 The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture, lead editor with
an introduction and chapter, University Press of New England
Nominated: Royal Society prize for best book of the year
in art, literature, and science (Janet Browne)
Reviews: J. S. Schwartz, Choice, May 2010, p. 554
Jennifer Tucker, Victorian Studies, Spring 2010, pp. 440-48
Rachel Delue, The Art Bulletin, Dec. 2010, pp. 386-91
R. B. Gordon, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Spring 2011, 344-46
S. Brandes, Visual Studies, March 2011, 77-79
Constance Clark, Isis, June 2011, pp. 372-73
Sonia Stephens, Rhizomes, Summer 2011
2005 The Dark Side of Nature: Science, Society, and the Fantastic in the Work of
Odilon Redon, University Park: Penn State University Press
In series “Refiguring Modernism: Literature, Art, Science”
Reviews: J.P. Gilroy, The French Review, May 2007, pp. 1389-90
Robert Brain, Isis, June 2007, pp. 408-9
Dario Gamboni, Revue de l’art, Oct. 2007, pp. 68-69
Mary Hunter, The Oxford Art Journal, June 2009, pp. 153-56
Book Chapters and Catalogue Essays
2017 “The Philosophies of Art of the First Chairs of Art History in Great
Britain and France,” Victorian Culture and the Origin of
Disciplines, Bernard Lightman and Bennett Zon, eds.,
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2017
2016
2014
2013
2010
2009
2009
2007
2007
2004
2004
1999
1995
1994
Cambridge University Press
“The Post-Darwinian Eye, Aesthetics, and Painting in Great Britain,”
Science and Victorian Art, Nancy Marshall, ed.
“Gauguin, Vitalist,” Gauguin’s Challenge: New Perspectives after
Post-Modernism, Norma Broude, ed., Bloomsbury Publishing
“Evolution and Victorian Art,” in Evolution and Victorian Culture,
Bennett Zon and Bernard Lightman, eds., Cambridge U. Press
“Darwin, Burke, and the Sublime,” in Darwin and Theories of Aesthetics and
Cultural History, Barbara Larson and Sabine Flach, eds., Ashgate
“Through Stained Glass: Abstraction and Embodiment in Early Twentieth
Century Avant-Garde Circles,” in Habitus in Habitat, Jan Soeffner,
ed., Peter Lang Verlag, pp. 227-42
“Ornithology and Allegory in the Work of Walton Ford,” exhibition essay,
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
“Sexual Selection and the Jealous Male in Fin-de-Siècle Art,” in The
Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture,
Barbara Larson and Fae Brauer, eds., University Press of New England
pp. 173-93
“Darwin’s Voyage and Redon’s Distant Shores,” in Redon: le ciel, la terre, la
mer, ed. Laurence Madeline, exh. cat., Réunion des musées nationaux, La
Réunion, Oct.-Dec. 2007, pp. 106-15
“From Botany to Belief: Odilon Redon and Armand Clavaud,” in Odilon Redon:
As in a Dream, eds. Margret Stuffmann and Ulrike Goeschen, exh. cat.,
Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, pp. 95-102
“Odilon Redon’s Temptation of St. Anthony Lithographs,” in Medieval Saints in
Late Nineteenth-Century French Culture, eds. Elizabeth Emery and Laurie
Postlewaite, Jefferson: McFarland Press (accepted in 2000), pp. 47-81
“Curing Degeneration: Health and the Neo-Classical Body in Early TwentiethCentury France,” for volume In Sickness and in Health: Disease as
Metaphor in Art and Popular Wisdom, ed. Laurinda Dixon, Newark:
University of Delaware Press, pp. 166-86
“The New Astronomy and the Expanding Cosmos: The View from France at the
End of the Nineteenth Century,” in Cosmos, ed. Jean Clair, exh. cat.,
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, pp. 168-73
“Microbes and Maladies: Bacteriology and Health at the Fin de Siècle,” in
Symbolist Europe, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, pp.385-95
“La génération symboliste et la révolution darwinienne,” in L’âme au corps: arts
et sciences, 1793-1993, eds. Jean Clair and Pierre Changeaux, exh.cat.,
Réunion des musées nationaux, Grand Palais, Paris, pp. 322-42
Journal Articles/Review Essays/Other
2011 Visual Culture and Evolution: A Conversation, National Academy of Sciences,
Washington, D.C. (contributor)
2009 “Mapping the Body and Brain: Rodin and Localization Theory,” Revue d’art
canadienne, June 2009, pp. 30-40
2005 “The Artist as Ethnographer: Cordier and Race Theory in Mid-Nineteenth
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France,” review essay, The Art Bulletin, December 2005, pp. 714-22
2004 “Odilon Redon and the Pasteurian Revolution: Health, Hygiene and le monde
invisible, “Modern Art and Science” issue of Science in Context, ed.
Linda Henderson, 2004, pp. 503-24
2004 “The Franco-Prussian War and Cosmological Symbolism in the Work of Odilon
Redon, Artibus et Historiae, 2004, pp. 127-38
2003 “Evolution and Degeneration in Odilon Redon’s Early Symbolist Work,” for the
issue “The Darwin Effect: Evolution and Nineteenth-Century Visual
Culture,” ed. Linda Nochlin, in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, April
2003, pp. 1-15; electronically republished by Edinburgh College of Art at
website “The Species of Origin: Evolving a Contemporary Darwin Arts
Project, 2009”
Panels Organized/Discussant/Keynote
2012 Session co-chair, “The Spiritual in the Age of Science,” for NineteenthCentury Studies Association Conference, Asheville, March 2012
2010 Keynote speaker for “Charles Darwin, Art, and Evolution,” University of
New South Wales, Sept. 8-12, 2010
2010 Panelist for “Evolution and Visual Culture,” National Academy of Sciences,
Washington, D.C., on-line symposium, April 5-14, 2010
2009 Discussant for “Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the
Visual Arts,” Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, July 9, 2009
2009 Conference co-organizer, “The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms and
Visual Culture,” nine panels, the Courtauld Institute of Art (University
College, London), July 2-4, 2009; panel chair: “Darwin and Aesthetic
Theory” and “Exhibiting Darwinism”
2008 Session chair, “Art and Science in the Nineteenth Century,” for Association of
Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art, College Art Association
Conference, Dallas, February 2008
2006 Session co-chair, “Darwinism and its Discontents,” for Society for Art, Literature
Science (sponsored by the Dactyl Foundation and New York University),
NY, November 2006
Select Lectures and Invited Addresses
2016 “The First Chairs of Art History in Great Britain and France,” for Victorian
Culture and the Origin of Disciplines,” Durham, March 2016
2015 “Gauguin and Neurology,” for panel “Is Science Measurement?,” College
Art Association, NY, February 2015
2013 “Seeing and Not Seeing: The Post-Darwinian eye and Aesthetics in Great
Britain,” for session “The Darwin Effect,” College Art Association,
February 2013
2012 “Gauguin, the Sensorium, and Spiritual Life,” for Nineteenth-Century Studies
Association Conference, “Spiritual Matters,” Asheville, March 2012
2012 “Darwin, the Creator’s Divine Breath, and Symbolism,” for colloque,
Redéfinir le Symbolisme européen, Musée d’Orsay, April 2012
2011 “Redon et la grande guerre,” for Redon Symposium, Musée d’Orsay, invited,
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2010
2010
2010
2009
2009
2008
2006
2005
2004
2004
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
July 2011
“Stained Glass and Early Abstraction,” for symposium “New Light: A
Celebration of Stained Glass at the Art Institute,” Art Institute of
Chicago, invited, Dec. 2010
“Communities of Reverence and Revelation in Early Avant-Garde Circles”
for “Habitus in Habitat,” Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung,
Berlin, invited, July 2009
“Through Stained Glass: Abstraction and Embodiment in the Early Twentieth
Century,” for session “Vision, Space, and Ideology,” College Art
Association, Chicago, February 2010
“The Jealous Male in Fin-de-Siècle Art,” Lafayette College, invited, November
invited, 2009
“Darwin, Burke, and the Sublime,” for “The Art of Evolution,” the Courtauld
Institute of Art, London/University of Cambridge, July 2009
“Munch and Darwin,” for “Kultur der Evolution,” Zentrum für Literatur-und
Kulturforschung, Berlin, invited, November 2008
“Mapping the Brain and the Body: Localization Theory in the Work of Rodin,”
for conference “Close Encounters,” Society for Art, Literature and
Science, Amsterdam, refereed, June 2006
“From Matter to Thought: Rodin and Michelangelo,” for conference “Emergent
Systems,” Cognitive Environments,” Society for Art, Literature and
Science, Chicago, refereed, November 2005
“The Modern Pilgrimage and Rodin’s Gates of Hell,” Romance Studies
Colloquium, Jersey City, NJ, refereed, October 2004
“Rodin’s Gates of Hell and Late Nineteenth-Century Medicine,” for conference
“Conversation: Enacting new Synergies in Arts and Sciences,” Society for
Art, Literature and Science, Paris, refereed, June 2004
“Rodin’s Gates of Hell and Les Cathédrales de France,” for panel “NineteenthCentury Medievalisms,” International Congress on Medieval Studies,
refereed, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2004
“Gauguin, Anthropology and the History of Religious Belief,” for panel
“Science, Religion and Art,” Society for Art, Literature and Science,
Austin, TX, invited, October 2003
“First Families: Adam and Eve Meet Cro-Magnon Man in the South of France,”
“Science, Religion and National Identity in French Art, 1871-1914,”
College Art Association, Philadelphia, refereed, February 2002
“Evolution and Degeneration in the Noirs of Odilon Redon,” for symposium
“The Darwin Effect: Evolution and Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture,”
Institute of Fine Arts, New York City, invited, April 2001
“Seeing the Invisible: Shifting Perspectives at the End of the Century,” for
symposium “Ways of Seeing the Nineteenth Century, Interdisciplinary
Nineteenth-Century Studies, Université de Paris-X, Nanterre, refereed,
June 2000
“Redon and Microbomania in Fin-de-Siècle France,” Society for Art, Literature
and Science conference, Norman, OK, invited, October 1999
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1998
1996
1995
1994
1993
“The Cormon Atelier and Emerging Symbolism,” for Nineteenth-Century
Studies Session, “New Narratives, New Readings in Nineteenth-Century
Art,” at College Art Association meeting in Toronto, refereed, February
1998
“Zola’s Legacy to Symbolism in Art,” Fifth International AIZEN
Conference on Emile Zola and Naturalism, New York, Oct. 1996
“The Politics of Prevention: The Pasteurian Revolution and Social Solidarity
Changing Concepts of Hygiene, Contagion and Urban Life,” for
Nineteenth-Century French Studies Convention panel “The Discourse of
Medicine,” Wilmington, Delaware, refereed, October 1995
“Redon, Evolutionary Theory and the Decline of France,” for the College Art
Association Panel “Degeneration and Decline 1789-1993,” New York,
refereed, February 1994
“Odilon Redon: Science and Fantasy in the Noirs,” Woodner exhibition of
Noirs, The Drawing Center, New York, invited, May 1993
Service to the Field
Series editor, “Science and the Arts since 1750,” Routledge Press (current)
Manuscript referee for Ashgate Press, 2013, 2014, 2015
Manuscript referee for Yale University Press, 2010
Manuscript referee for Ashgate Press, 2006, 2009, 2011
Manuscript referee for British journal Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 2009
Manuscript referee for Prentice-Hall, 2008
Manuscript referee for University of California Press, 2007
Referee for Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council of Canada, 2008
Referee for National Endowment for the Humanities stipends, 2006, 2008, 2009
Exhibition consultant, 2006, “Odilon Redon: As in a Dream,” Margret
Stuffmann, curator, Shirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2007
Courses Taught
Lectures:
Nineteenth-Century European Art
Romanticism
European Art 1848-1905
Early Twentieth-Century Art
European Art Between the Wars
Art after 1950
Nineteenth-Century Religious Painting
Modern Sculpture
Women and Art, 1750-Now: Art, Gender, and Modernity
History and Methodologies of Art History
Twentieth-Century Art
Survey II: Baroque to the Present
Seminars:
Theories of the Body: 1880-1914
Symbolism
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Colonialism/Post-Colonialism
Post-Modernism
Expressionism in Germany
Gauguin
Impressionism
Art and Science in the Nineteenth Century
Montmartre
M.A. Theses: Leah-Lanni Griffin, “Malevich’s Black Square in Context
Catherine Cohn, “Kees van Dongen and the Women of Montmartre,”
Catherine Horton, “Blood Lust: Images of the Vampire in Fin-de-Siècle
Art and Culture
Rebecca Stevens, “Urban Realism, Modernism and Nationalism in the
Prints of Edward Hopper and Martin Lewis
Anne Ziegler, “Organic Imagery and Nineteenth-Century Science in the
Work of Margaret and Frances Macdonald”
Professional Organizations
College Art Association
Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art
Society for Art, Literature and Science
Association of Art Historians
Languages
French, German, Spanish
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