EXPERTISE
Art
Architecture
History
FACULTY PROFILE
"I am originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I graduated from UW-Milwaukee with a degree in Painting/Drawing and French. I attended graduate school at the City University of New York in New York City, where I earned my Master's degree in Art History in 2008 (Hunter College) and my Ph.D. in Art History and Film Studies in 2018 (CUNY Graduate Center). From 2010-2018, I taught art history courses at numerous public and private universities throughout the NYC area, including New York University and Brooklyn College.
I'm passionate about an approach to teaching that focuses more on having an enriching learning experience, asking difficult questions, and looking critically -- and less on memorizing dates. Writing, research, and real-life applications of art historical knowledge play a large role in my classes. In my spare time, I enjoy working on illustrations and animations, catching up on TV and movies, and traveling".
- Rebecca Siefert
Website
My research centers on modern and contemporary art and architecture, especially the women who have been overlooked or written out of history. I am dedicated to broadening the scope of art history by focusing more on those overlooked figures in the hopes that we can expand our understanding of how modern and contemporary art came to be. My dissertation, which later became the basis of my first book, was a monograph on the architect, artist, teacher, theorist Lauretta Vinciarelli -- the first comprehensive look at Vinciarelli's career (published by Lund Humphries in 2020). Of particular note are Vinciarelli's collaborations with famed Minimalist artist Donald Judd, a fact often ignored/overlooked by mainstream scholarship.
I also contributed to the Routledge Companion to Women in Architecture (2021) and have published articles and presented at conferences on the intersections between women, housing, and feminism in the U.S. and Italy during the postwar era. I am also a founding member of the Society of Architectural Historians Women in Architecture Affiliate Group.