Click to view QP Symposium program.
The Qualifying Paper, QP as we call it, is the capstone project and is required for all graduating students. As you will see from the titles, the topics are diverse, original, and unusual. From the adornment of women in ancient Macedonia, to the jewelry of sex workers in turn-of-the-century New Orleans, to the role of satin scarves worn by Black women in the United States, they embody the kind of curiosity and creativity that we like to cultivate in our students. Many of this year’s QPs address women’s history in one way or another, while a number of others engage with issues of race and social justice. The QP can take several forms: traditional essays, digital projects, and mock exhibitions designed using Google SketchUp. The projects typically begin as term papers in elective classes, take shape over the entire second year of the program, and must be completed while the students are enrolled in a full slate of classes with their own requirements. Starting with a term paper or other class project, the students work together with faculty to identify areas for broadening, expanding, and deepening their research, often undertaking some form of archival or object-based exploration. As ever, we, the faculty, are extremely proud of the work they have done, and hope you will be inspired by the abstracts and images that follow.
—Deborah L. Krohn, Associate Professor and Chair of Academic Programs
2022 Qualifying Paper Symposium
May 26, 2022
1:30 pm
Welcome Remarks
Prof. Susan Weber, Founder & DirectorProf. Peter N. Miller, Dean
Prof. Deborah L. Krohn, Chair of Academic Programs
Introduction
Prof. Catherine Whalen1:45 pm
Group I: Introduced by Prof. Ittai Weinryb
Kat Lanza, Timeless Dispositions: Devotional Objects as Non-Mimetic PortraitsSamuel Snodgrass, “May I be deaf at the Opera”: Dress and Voice of Macaroni and Castrati
Julia Carabatsos, “What a motley Creature I was become”: Hester Piozzi’s “Demi-Naturalization” Materialized
Pim Supavarasuwat, “One Sheds One’s Sickness in Books”: Illness, Uncertainty, and the Book as Creative Intervention
3 pm
Group II: Introduced by Prof. Michele Majer
Ellen Enderle, Adorned in Gold: Religion, Personal Display, and Women’s Agency in Ancient Macedonia Grace Billingslea, Fashioning Equality, Independence, and Freedom for Women in the Nineteenth Century: Madame Demorest’s Business Empire
Ariana Bishop, Loud Jewelry, Loose Women: Sex, Power, and Adornment in Storyville, New Orleans, 1880-1920
Laura Mogulescu, The Foreign-born Mother and the Materiality of Americanization: Photography and the Creation and Documentation of Americanization by the Educational Committee for Non-English Speaking Women
4:15 pm
Group III: Introduced by Prof. Deborah L. Krohn
Bridget Bartal, (Mis)fitting Taliesin: The Women of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin FellowshipKristin McCool, Challenging the Status Quo: Unsettling Dominant Narratives in MoMA’s Gallery 412
mary adeogun, a satin scarf, and its many uses
Marion Cox, Totem and Anti-Totem: Dual Signification and the Contentious History of Richmond’s Robert E. Lee Monument
