Issue 2.1
The executive editors are pleased to launch the third issue of Panorama, the first and only peer-reviewed, open-access, electronic publication dedicated to American art and visual culture (broadly defined), from the fifteenth century to the present day. Panorama was founded with the hope that it would become a venue for innovative scholarship and timely conversation within the field. To this end, the journal’s first two issues featured full-length research essays, reviews, and Bully Pulpit roundtables on art history’s place in the academy and the role of connoisseurship in the discipline’s future. The current issue builds on this foundation by offering a newly expansive roster of articles, reviews, and commentary and by launching an exciting new feature: our Research Notes section. It also places new emphasis on commentary and conversation.
The issue begins with a roundtable devoted to pedagogical approaches. “Reflections on Teaching American Art History,” pairs an essay by Jules Prown on teaching with eight short pedagogical meditations by art historians and curators working in universities, schools of art and design, community colleges, and museums. A special section on “Art and Invention,” guest edited by Ellery Foutch and Hélène Valance, explores the intersections between American artistic practice and technological innovation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expanding on an AHAA sponsored session on the same theme at the 2016 College Art Association conference, the section comprises three essays by Elizabeth Bacon Eager, Lauren Turner Igoe, and coauthors Cary Levine and Philip Glahn. Vivien Green Fryd’s feature article, “Kara Walker’s About the Title,” examines how Walker’s eponymous 2002 drawing engages transcultural and transgenerational trauma experienced by enslaved African Americans and indigenous peoples. Lastly, this issue inaugurates our Research Notes section with two short essays by Emily Burns and Corey Piper, on “playing Indian” in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Paris and taxidermy in the artist’s studio, respectively.
In addition to a full roster of book and exhibition reviews, the issue presents the Bully Pulpit, “Is American Art History Conservative?,” guest-edited by Catherine Holochwost. It incorporates brief responses by four scholars from a range of fields (Jennifer Doyle, Bruce Robertson, Emily Casey, and Michael Gaudio). The same section also includes our new Talk Back feature, which presents reader responses to past articles and roundtables. The first Talk Back installment includes four brief replies to the “Whither Connoisseurship?” roundtable that appeared in issue 2 (written by Janet Catherine Berlo and members of CUNY’s Americanist Art Salon).
Countless hours of work by Panorama staff, contributors, and AHAA members went into the production of this issue. The editors are deeply grateful for these efforts and the support of our readers. As ever, we invite your input and contributions.
Sincerely,
The Executive Editors
Ross Barrett, Assistant Professor, Boston University
Sarah Burns, Professor Emerita, Indiana University
Jennifer Jane Marshall, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota
About the Author(s):