Postgraduate Prospectus

www.essex.ac.uk/arthistory | Art History
Jann Marson, Portland,
United States – Visiting
PhD Art History and Theory
Student
profile
I am a US-UK Fulbright and
Vanier CGS scholar, and PhD
student from the University of
Toronto, currently enrolled at
Essex as a visiting PhD student.
Fulbright Fellowships require you to
affiliate with a university abroad and I
chose Essex for its top scholars in my
field and close proximity to London's
museums, galleries, libraries and archives,
which house primary sources related to
my thesis.
Essex’s School of Philosophy and Art
History was my first choice as it is one of
only two places to partner the Centre for
the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies,
which boasts the highest concentration of
Surrealist scholars in the world. Studying
here has presented me with opportunities
that I would not have experienced
otherwise; I co-taught an MA module and
then expanded on this by organising and
co-chairing a research-intensive workshop
with other art history scholars in the UK.
Easy access from the University to London
has enabled me to commute twice a week
for research at the British Library, the
British Museum, Tate, and other British
cultural institutions, which are among the
finest resources in the world for humanities
students. This has significantly advanced
my research.
After completing my studies at Essex,
I will begin a one-year fellowship at the
Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles,
where I hope to continue expanding my
knowledge of the ways humanities
scholarship helps us understand cultural
expression of all kinds. My time as a
Fulbright Scholar has enabled me to
engage a much broader audience in
my work, which addresses the complex
relationships between visual art,
literature, politics, protest and revolt.
These are as crucial to understanding
the challenges arising in current localised
struggles to promote awareness of
intangible cultural heritage, as they are
to navigating today's global climate of
international political unrest.
The highlight of my time at Essex
has been my new friendships and
opportunities for intellectual and cultural
exchange. I was delighted to find PhD
students eager to form extracurricular
study groups and create meaningful
discourse beyond what is provided by
our departments. Essex students have a
real sense of community and waste no
time discovering the valuable resource
that can be found in each other, which
I believe is a product of the University's
emphasis on interdisciplinary exchange.
Simply put, education is just as much
about the people as it is the information,
and I’ve made a lot of
friends with whom I plan
to stay in touch.
training in IT and research methodologies,
including advanced library research skills.
Most of our successful graduates are now
working in academic institutions, in national
or regional museums or galleries, or in other
arts-related professions, both throughout
the UK and abroad. Among recent
successes are the appointment of Jim
Walsh (PhD ’07) as chief executive of the
South Place Ethical Society in London, and
Lucy Bradnock (PhD ’09), working on
a project examining West Coast art at The
Getty Institute, Los Angeles. Our other
graduates teach in leading departments
in York, Glasgow and London, while the
curator of public programmes at Tate
Modern is an Essex art history graduate.
Research areas
Research supervision is available in the
following fields:
n Aesthetics and theory of art
n British and European art and theory in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
n Colonial and modern Latin American
art since Independence
n Contemporary art and theory
n Cubism, Dada and Surrealism
n European art and theory 1250-1700,
particularly in Italy and France
n Expressionism
n Historiography of art history
n History and theory of architecture
n Museology and gallery studies
n Twentieth-century art and theory in
Europe, Britain and North America
n Urbanism and the built environment
Postgraduate Prospectus 2012 | 65