Dr. Erika Doss, a historian of American art and culture, has joined The University of Texas at Dallas as a professor of art history in the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology and the Edith O’Donnell Distinguished Chair in the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History.
“We are thrilled to have someone of Erika’s caliber join our exceptional team of art historians and experts,” said Dr. Nils Roemer, dean of the Bass School and the Arts, Humanities, and Technology Distinguished University Chair. “Her presence will help further establish UT Dallas as a hub for art knowledge and excellence.” Roemer is also director of the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies and the Stan and Barbara Rabin Distinguished Professor in Holocaust Studies.
Doss primarily studies American art history, popular culture and public culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her wide-ranging interests in American art are reflected in numerous publications and public lectures, which typically address the complexities of modern and contemporary American visual and material cultures.
Doss most recently was professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, where she was on the faculty for 16 years, including eight as department chair. Prior to that she spent 21 years at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Art and Art History, including as associate department chair. Beginning in 1991, she also was director of the university’s American studies program.
“I’m really impressed with the possibilities of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History,” she said. “It’s unique, young and exactly the sort of immersive art history environment that can really be wonderful.”
Dr. Erika Doss
Title: professor of art history and Edith O’Donnell Distinguished Chair
Previously: professor of American studies, University of Notre Dame
Research interests: 20th- and 21st-century American art; public art, monuments, and memorials; cultural affect
In addition to her art research, Doss said she has spent much of her academic career engaging in public culture debates. She is working on books regarding public monuments, public memorials and public art. She also is penning an article on the artist Grandma Moses for a major retrospective exhibition of her art, which opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2025.
Dr. Michael Thomas, director of the O’Donnell Institute and Richard R. Brettell Distinguished University Chair, said he envisions the institute expanding the broader aspects of cultural history and that Doss is a perfect fit.
“Erika is one of the country’s greatest scholars in American art. Her breadth of scholarship is amazing: She’s worked on everything from 19th-century American art to Jackson Pollock, and even contemporary American art,” he said. “She also has a willingness to work on things that aren’t always comfortable, such as controversial public memorials that, though they may represent regrettable historical moments, nonetheless exist as relevant components of our cultural heritage.”
One aspect of Doss’ work is her focus on innovation, which she said feeds her interest in the digital humanities, a field at the intersection of computer technology and the humanities. A recent project she collaborated on was Memorial Mapping, a venture dedicated to geographically locating memorials around the world to learn about historical memory in an increasingly transnational world. Her 2017 project focused on 9/11 memorials.
“The digital humanities is a really exciting way to access so much more information,” she said. “In addition, I am pursuing new ways to handle conservation and preservation of art, as well as issues like copyright and property rights.”
“We are thrilled to have someone of Erika’s caliber join our exceptional team of art historians and experts. Her presence will help further establish UT Dallas as a hub for art knowledge and excellence.”
Dr. Nils Roemer, dean of the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
Doss is co-editor of the “Culture America” series at the University Press of Kansas and has served on the editorial boards of American Quarterly and the Smithsonian’s American Art. She is currently on the editorial boards for Memory Studies, Material Religion and Public Art Dialogue. She has written several books on such diverse topics as American artists and religion, Elvis Presley culture, public art and cultural democracy, and the politics of modernism. She also has written hundreds of book chapters and scholarly articles and essays.
A recipient of several Fulbright awards, Doss has also held numerous fellowships, including at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian, the Stanford Humanities Center and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center. In 2017 she was named to the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Society of Fellows.
Doss graduated from Ripon College in Wisconsin with a bachelor’s degree in art and art history. She earned master’s and doctoral degrees in art history from the University of Minnesota. After stints as a visiting assistant professor at Carleton College in Minnesota and at the University of Oregon, she was an assistant professor of art at Cleveland State University before joining CU Boulder.
Bass School Welcomes New Fellow of Miriam Lewis Barnett Chair
For Dr. Hanno Berger, lessons about the Holocaust, totalitarianism and political evils can be found not only in history and philosophy books, but also in the arts. The new assistant professor of film studies in the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at The University of Texas at Dallas said films are a powerful way to understand political questions.
“Combining these two aspects — films and the political and theoretical aspects of revolution — can help us understand and identify important political movements and the development of revolutions,” he said.
Berger joined UT Dallas this fall as Fellow, Miriam Lewis Barnett Chair for studies related to the Holocaust, genocide and human rights. His recent research has examined the writings of Hannah Arendt, a German-born Jewish political theorist who fled to the U.S. during World War II and wrote and lectured on totalitarianism, politics, and the nature of power and evil.
In addition to teaching film studies, he is also a faculty member in the Bass School’s Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies.
Dr. Nils Roemer, dean of the Bass School, director of the Ackerman Center, and the Stan and Barbara Rabin Distinguished Professor in Holocaust Studies, said Berger’s expertise fits well with the goals of the center.
“We’re excited to have such a multifaceted, multidisciplinary scholar who can analyze and discuss film, not just from the aesthetics perspective, but also from a theoretical perspective — looking at the broader questions of genocides, revolutions and the related philosophy,” said Roemer, who also holds the Arts, Humanities, and Technology Distinguished University Chair.
Berger most recently served in postdoctoral research assistant positions at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and at Vanderbilt University. He earned his doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degrees in film studies from Freie Universität Berlin.
He recently published a book, Thinking Revolution Through Film: On Audiovisual Stagings of Political Change, and he has written numerous book chapters related to film studies.
Meet New Faculty Experts in Arts, Neuroscience, Engineering
The University of Texas at Dallas welcomed its largest group of new tenured and tenure-track faculty members with more than 55 of them joining the University this year, including many who started this fall.
This year’s group includes:
Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
Dr. Hanno Berger, assistant professor of film studies and Fellow, Miriam Lewis Barnett Chair
Dr. Erika Doss, professor of art history and Edith O’Donnell Distinguished Chair
Dr. Humberto González Núñez, assistant professor of philosophy
Dr. En Li, assistant professor of modern East Asian history
Dr. Jack Murray, assistant professor of game design
Dr. Kevin Sweet, assistant professor of design and interactive arts – immersive experience
Dr. Gretchen VanWormer, assistant professor of literature and creative writing
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Dr. Roozbeh Behroozmand, associate professor of speech, language, and hearing
Dr. Lena Nguyen, assistant professor of neuroscience
Dr. Katelyn Sadler, assistant professor of neuroscience
Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science
Dr. Rawan Alghofaili, assistant professor of computer science
Dr. Kevin Brenner, assistant professor of materials science and engineering
Dr. Yi Ding, assistant professor of computer science
Dr. Sourav Dutta, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Dr. Yongsheng Gao, assistant professor of bioengineering
Dr. Daniel Gibney, assistant professor of computer science
Dr. Brian N. Kim, associate professor of bioengineering
Dr. Juyoung Leem, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Dr. Bingzhe Li, assistant professor of computer science
Dr. You Li, assistant professor of bioengineering
Dr. Xinchen Ni, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Dr. Laisuo Su, assistant professor of materials science and engineering
Dr. Xinda Wang, assistant professor of computer science
Dr. Yanwen Xu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Dr. Kianoosh Yousefi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
*Note: New tenured and tenure-track professors from the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, the Naveen Jindal School of Management and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics will be featured in a future edition of News Center.