Elena FitzPatrick Sifford
Education
- B.A., Art History and African American Studies, Oberlin College
- Ph.D., Art History, The City University of New York
Teaching Interests
What can a work of art tell us about a given place, time, or culture? How did humans across time and space use objects to reflect group identity, promote political ideals, or to venerate a higher power? In short: what does art tell us about us
My courses engage students in these questions using high impact learning strategies. Lectures are frequently punctuated by active in class learning opportunities including student debates and discussions, drawing and other visual exercises related to course material, and video and writing activities. A student in my courses might find themselves debating a fourteenth century commission one week and posing as an ancient sculptural group the next.
My courses include the art history survey as well as courses in the Early Modern period (c. 1500-1800) from a global perspective. I also teach a survey of Latin American art as well as Art of the Ancient Americas. Prior to joining the faculty at Muhlenberg I taught at Louisiana State University, Pratt Institute, and Lehman College.
Research and Scholarship
My most recent work investigates the depicting of Africans in the visual culture of colonial Mexico and Peru. “Mexican Manuscripts and the First Images of Africans in the Americas” was published in Ethnohistory (Duke University Press, 2019), and “A Fly in Milk: Fears of Black (In)visibility in New Spanish Painting,” was published in Emotions, Art, and Religion in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, c. 1400-1800 (Brill, 2021).
I have also worked with a colleague at Cornell University, Ananda Cohen-Aponte, on several projects addressing issues of diversity and inclusion in the field of art history. We conducted a survey to gather data regarding faculty of color in the professoriate in order to widen the pathway to a more diverse and equitable field of Latin American art history. That resulted in publications entitled “Addressing Diversity and Inclusion in Latin American Art,” in Latin American and Latinx Visual Cultures and “A Call to Action” in Art Journal.
I am a member of College Art Association, Association for Latin American Art, and Renaissance Society of America. Outside of work I enjoy spending time in nature with my husband and kids, playing indoor soccer, practicing yoga, traveling, and visiting museums and historic sites.
- Art Histories: An Introduction
- Art History Independent Study/Research: Music In the Museum
- Baroque Art
- CUE: Methods of Art History
- Introduction to Art of the Americas
- Spc Top: Art of the Ancient Americas
- Spc Top: Colonial Latin Am Art
Publications
2022: “Indigenous and Black Exchanges in Viceregal Visual Culture,” in The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art History, edited by Charlene Villaseñor Black, Florencia San Martin, and Tatiana Flores. Oxfordshire: Routledge, forthcoming.
2021: “Indigenous Artists and African Subjects in the Viceroyalty of Peru,” in Visual Culture and Indigenous Agency in the Early Americas: New Approaches and Interpretations, edited by Alessia Frassani and Merideth Paxton. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming.
2021: “A Fly in Milk: Creole Fears of Black (In)visibility in New Spanish Painting,” in Emotions, Art, and Religion in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, c. 1400-1800, edited by Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Heather Graham. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
2019: “A Call to Action,” co-authored with Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Art Journal 78, No. 4 (November 2019), 118-122.
2019: “Mexican Manuscripts and the First Images of Africans in the Americas,” Ethnohistory, 66, no. 2 (April 2019), 223-248.
2019: “Addressing Diversity and Inclusion in Latin American and Latinx Art
History” (with Ananda Cohen-Aponte), a co-edited “Dialogues” (including co-authored introduction and essays by Beatriz Balanta, Kency Cornejo, Arlene Dávila, Emmanuel Ortega, Rose Salseda, and Lawrence Waldron), Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1, no. 3 (2019): 60-100.
Exhibition Publications
2023: “Blackness in Motion Between Africa and the Americas,” co-authored with Cécile Fromont. Race B4Race Newberry Library, ACMRS Press
2019: “Ronny Quevedo’s Play of Space, Space of Play,” Muhlenberg College Martin Art Gallery.
Digital Publications
2022: Chapter on Colonial Latin America, Reframing Art History, Smarthistory global textbook.
2021: “Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo, attributed to Juan Rodríguez
Juárez,” co-authored with Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, in Smarthistory, https://smarthistory.org/spaniard-and-indian-produce-a-mestizo-attributed-to-juan-rodriguez/
Presentations
2022: “Mexico City’s Alameda as a Racialized Space in New Spanish Painting,” American Historical Association, “Reading Race and Racial Hierarchies in Visual Sources from Latin America,” New Orleans, January.
2021: “Christianity, The Visual Arts, and Blackness,” Black History Month Speaker Series (conducted via Zoom), The Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, February.
2021: “Teaching Casta Painting: Picturing Difference in Colonial Mexico,” Smarthistory Commons Conversations (conducted via Zoom), January.
2020: “Indigenous Artists and African Subjects in the Visual Culture of the Spanish Americas,” The University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art Distinguished Visiting Speakers in the Art of the Spanish Americas (conducted via Zoom due to COVID-19), October.
2020: "Casta Paintings: Picturing Racial Difference in Colonial Mexico," Art Matters Lecture Series, Santa Barbara Museum of Art (conducted via Zoom due to COVID-19), October.
2020: Muhlenberg College Summer Research Grant
2019: Muhlenberg College New Course Development Grant
2019: Muhlenberg College Trexler Library Parents’ Fund
Art
Italian Studies
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Contact: elenasifford@muhlenberg.edu