Elizabeth Van Arragon, Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
616-526-6637
ejv9@calvin.edu
Office: Spoelhof Center 207
Education
MA, University of Iowa
PhD, University of Iowa
Courses
Research and Professional Interests
- Early 20th century Documentary Photography
- Art and Identity Politics
Recent Publications
- The Photo League: Views of Urban Experience in the 1930s and 1940s, Lambert Academic Press, 2010
- “From Observation to Personal Vision: Hague School Landscapes and Modernism,” Between Nature and Nationality: The Hague School in the Nineteenth Century (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Calvin College, 2007).
Conference Presentations
- “Picturing the Local: The Photo League and the American City in the Thirties and Forties,” American Studies panel, National Communication Association, San Diego, California, November 23, 2008.
- “Debating a Political Aesthetic: The New York City Photo League,” Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, Long Beach, California, November 4, 2007.
- “Critiquing or Upholding Stereotypes of Race? Aaron Siskind and Harlem Cabarets,” Photography and the Cultural Imaginary panel, Midwest American Studies Association Annual Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana, October 28, 2006.
Public Lectures
- "Conceptual Art 101: Art as Idea as Idea,” Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, in conjunction with the Jaume Plensa exhibition and International Sculpture Conference, October 19, 2008.
- "Issues in Art from the 1960s to the Present,” lecture/tutorial for GRAM Docents, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 3, 2008.
- "Responses to Modernism in Contemporary Dutch Painting,” Grand Rapids Art Museum, in conjuction with the exhibition, A Faithful Eye: Works from the ABN/AMRO Collection, January 6, 2008.
