Research Training Group "Expert Cultures from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century"

Gabriella Szalay, M.A.

Vita


  • 2014-2017 Research Fellow, "Cultures of Expertise from the 12th to the 18th Centuries", Georg August Universität, Göttingen
  • 2014 Baird Society Resident Scholar Program Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.
  • 2012-2013 Columbia University Mellon Traveling Fellowship Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University
  • 2011-2012 Rudolf Wittkower Dissertation Fellowship Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
  • 2010-2011 Instructor of Record, Art Humanities (Core Curriculum) Columbia University, New York
  • 2010 M.Phil., Department of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University, New York
  • 2009-2010 Teaching Assistant, Department of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University, New York
  • 2009 M.A., Department of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University, New York
  • 2007-Present Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University, New York



Project Title


Materializing the Past: The History of Art and Natural History in Germany, 1750-1800
Ms. Szalay's project, "Materializing the Past: The History of Art and Natural History in Germany, 1750-1800," examines a network of German-speaking scholars who through a shared interest in the artefacts of by-gone civilizations, specimens drawn from the natural world, and "new" sciences like chemistry, developed a unique approach towards knowledge construction that she terms "material expertise." One of the main goals of her project is to show how material expertise was put into the service of history, as its proponents took up the argument that objects can be mined for vital information about their time and place of production.



Research Interests


  • History of Science
  • History of Art
  • Visual Culture
  • History and Sociology of Knowledge
  • Cultural Histories of the Material World
  • History and Theory of Materiality
  • History of Collecting and Collections
  • History of the Book
  • Antiquarianism
  • Artisanal Practices and Knowledge



Publications


  • "Various Contributions." In Sterbliche Götter: Raeffael und Dürer in der Kunst der deutschen Romantik. Ed. Michael Thimann and Christine Hübner. Göttingen. Art Museum of the University of Göttingen, with Michael Imhof, 2015. Exhibition catalog.
  • "Jacob Burckhardt." In Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  • "A Painting Fit for a Nation: The Dombild and Its Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Germany." In Representations of German Identity, edited by Deborah Asher Barnstone and Thomas O. Haakenson, 9-31. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013.
  • "Bamberg Relic Book" and "Nuremberg Relic Book." In Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, edited by Martina Bagnoli et al, 224-225, Yale University Press, 2010. Exhibition catalog.



Conferences


  • 2016 Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany, Paper: Circumscribing Knowledge: Paper Trials and Scientific Societies in Eighteenth-Century Europe
  • 2015 103rd Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, New York, Paper: Double-Take: The Renaissance Print in Eighteenth-Century Germany
  • 2014 National Museum of American History, Fellows Colloquium, Washington, D.C., Paper: Van Eyck, Vulcanism and the Chemistry of Time
  • 2013 German Studies Association Annual Conference, Denver, Colorado, Paper: Dissecting Dürer: Natural History and the History of Art in the Age of Romanticism
  • 2012 New Perspectives on the Romantic Period, Tate Britain, London, England, Paper: "Material Matters: Jan van Eyck in the Age of Romanticism"