Joan Greer
Professor, History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture
Associate Chair, Graduate
Office: 3-110 Fine Arts Building
(780) 492-7868
jegreer@ualberta.ca
Areas of Teaching and Research
Teaching: The history of art, design, and visual culture from the 18th century to the present; history and theory of sustainable design.
Research: Late 19th-/early 20th-century European art and design with a special focus on Holland and Belgium. Areas of concentration include constructions of artistic identity, the relationship between artistic and religious discourses, representations of Christ, the mythologizing and reception of Vincent van Gogh, the art and design of Johan Thorn Prikker, art periodicals and the private press movement, artists' writings and publications, the convergence of the fine and applied arts, record cover design and the history and theory of sustainable design.
Interdisciplinary Studies Program Membership
Science, Technology and Society
Religious Studies
Biography
PhD, Free University of Amsterdam, 2000
Joan Greer is Professor in the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture Division and is a member of the Religious Studies and Science and the Technology in Society Interdisciplinary Programs. Her research concerns late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European visual and material culture with a special focus on the convergences of art and design discourses with those of religion and radical politics. Areas of concentration include constructions of genius and of artistic identity, the relationship between artistic and religious discourses, representations of Christ, the mythologizing and reception of Vincent van Gogh, art and design periodicals and the private press movement, and the history and theory of sustainable design. She co-curated and coedited the exhibition catalogue for Seeing the World of Sound: the Cover Art of Folkways Records (2005). Other recent publications include "Representing 'Dutch Woman' at the 1898 National Exhibition for Women's Labour" (2006); "'Christ, this great artist:' Van Gogh's Socioreligious Canon of Art" (2003); "Three Christ Paintings of 1892 by Johan Thorn Prikker: 'an art of their own flesh and blood' (2003). In the spring of 2006 she received a SSHRC grant for a project concerning the image of the artist in late nineteenth century Holland.
Recent Research
