Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.

Bard Graduate Center advances the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through its object-centered approach to teaching, research, exhibitions, publications, and events.

At BGC, we study the human past and present through their material expressions. We focus on objects and other material forms—from those valued for their aesthetic elements to the ordinary things used in everyday life.

Our accomplished interdisciplinary faculty inspires and prepares students in our MA and PhD programs for successful careers in academia, museums, and the private sector. We bring equal intellectual rigor to our acclaimed exhibitions, award-winning catalogues and scholarly publications, and innovative public programs, and we view all of these integrated elements as vital to our curriculum.

BGC’s campus comprises a state-of-the-art academic programs building at 38 West 86th Street, a gallery at 18 West 86th Street, and a residence hall at 410 West 58th Street. A new collection study center will open at 8 West 86th Street in 2026.

Founded by Dr. Susan Weber in 1993, Bard Graduate Center has become the preeminent institute for academic research and exhibition of decorative arts, design history, and material culture. BGC is an accredited unit of Bard College and a member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH).

My work on material culture addresses intersections among history, art history, anthropology, and philosophy. My principal scholarly concern is to mobilize non-written traces of the past to illuminate aspects of the lives of human actors that would otherwise remain obscure. As well as writing individual historical case studies on topics ranging from seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings, to Roman baroque sculpture, Native American baskets, and Congo textiles, I work on the philosophical plane of second order questioning. While on the faculty at Cambridge University, I collaborated with the late Salim Kemal to edit a ten book series of multi-author volumes, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and the Arts. I have organized numerous experimental exhibitions at Harvard University, where I taught and curated between 1991 and 2011. I am the author, editor, or co-editor of sixteen books, and have contributed to numerous journals and edited volumes in history, art history, and philosophy.

*On leave, spring 2025*

Selected Recent Publications

“Against Theory—Again (Though with Reservations).” In Contemporary Aesthetics 20, 2022 https://contempaesthetics.org/2022/01/27/against-theory-again-though-with-reservations/

The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture. Edited with Sarah Anne Carter. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

“Works of Art and Mere Real Things—Again.” In British Journal of Aesthetics 60, 2020, pp. 131-149.

“A Role for Empathy in Decolonizing Aesthetics: Unlikely Lessons from Roger Fry.” In Contemporary Aesthetics 17, 2019 https://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=870

“Race, Aesthetics, and Shelter: Towards a Postcolonial Historical Taxonomy of Buildings” In Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77, 379-390. Oxford University Press, 2019.

“Concord Migrations.” In Cultural Heritage, Ethics and Contemporary Migrations, edited by Cornelius Holtorf, Andreas Pantazatos, and Geoffrey Scarre, 89-109. London and New York: Routledge, 2019.

“Joining the Club: A Tongan ‘akau in New England.” In Curatopia: Museums and the Future of Curatorship, edited by Philipp Schorch and Conal McCarthy, 176-190. Manchester University Press, 2019.

“For the Union Dead: Memorial Hall at Harvard University, and the Exclusion of the Confederate Fallen.” In Philosophical Perspectives on Ruins, Monuments, and Memorials, edited by Jeanette Bicknell, Jennifer Judkins, and Carolyn Korsmeyer, 262-274. London and New York: Routledge, 2019.

“Portraiture Portrayed.” In Portraits and Philosophy, edited by Hans Maes, 9-23. London and New York: Routledge, 2019.

Selected Courses

871 Thinking with Things in North America

876 Tangible Things: Observing, Collecting, Sorting

883 Damage, Decay, Conservation

912 Curatorial Practice and American Art at the Metropolitan Museum

915 History and Material Culture: New Directions

932 The American Civil War: Art and Material Culture

967 Oceania: Art and Material Culture