The St. Joe’s art and art history departments hosted an undergraduate Art History Symposium on April 2, offering art history majors in the Philadelphia area an opportunity to present their work professionally and meet other students with similar interests.

Held in the Mandeville Teletorium, 20 students from ten Philadelphia-area schools including Temple University, Drexel University and The University of Pennsylvania presented a ten-minute presentation on an art history subject. The presentations covered a range of topics including Viking social classes, gender in classical Greece and ancient tombs in China.

“[Students are] doing really scholarly, interesting work,” said Martha Easton, Ph.D., assistant professor of art history at St. Joe’s, and one of the event organizers. “I think it’s good to showcase that and to give other people an opportunity to find out what’s happening in the classroom, but also to give the students practice for public speaking.” 

While there are a number of art symposiums organized for graduate students in the Philadelphia area, there are not typically any for undergraduate students, Easton said. This is why she and Emily Hage, Ph.D., another organizer and a professor of art history at St. Joe’s, “cooked up this idea” for a symposium.

“Over a year ago, I reached out to all of the different colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area that had undergraduate art history programs and I sort of said, ‘Would you be interested in collaborating on a symposium so that our students could meet each other, make connections with other students who have similar interests in the Philadelphia area, … and to share their work?” Easton said. 

Two St. Joe’s students chosen to present were Lauren Yingling ’25, who presented “European Glass Beads and Indigenous Artwork,” and Lillie Bennett ’23, who presented “Women of War.”

Yingling’s presentation was derived from connections she made between two previous courses, American Art and Architecture with Erin Downey, Ph.D., an adjunct professor and assistant curator at St. Joe’s, and Foraging the Modern World with Christopher Close, Ph.D., associate professor of history. 

“I realized that while the Industrial Revolution was going on, there was this drastic change in style and presentation of this indigenous [bead] work,” Yingling said. “I just thought it was quite interesting, so I thought I would try and create an argument for it.”

Bennett’s presentation derived from a final research paper she wrote for the course Women, Gender and Art, taught by Easton this past semester, about how women were portrayed during World War II. 

“[This research] gave me a specific way to look at history,” Bennett said. “I haven’t taken many art history classes because I’m also a computer science major, so it was a nice way to understand history and art from a lens that makes a lot of sense to me as a woman.”

Alyssa Vogel ’23, a student from La Salle University who presented “Beyond Dress Up: Cindy Sherman and Her Examination of Female Stereotypes,” extended on research she had done for a previous art history course. She said this was her first in-person symposium. 

“I really never had the chance to do this before, mainly because of covid,” Vogel said.  “But I’m so happy I had the opportunity.” Easton said she looks forward to future undergraduate Art History symposiums. 

“We’re hoping to do this every year,” Easton said. “So probably next year we’ll have it at a different institution and kind of go around to the different schools.”