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Bard Graduate Center is an advanced graduate research institute in New York City dedicated to the cultural histories of the material world. Our MA and PhD degree programs, Gallery exhibitions, research initiatives, scholarly publications and public programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

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Research

Bard Graduate Center is a research institute for advanced, interdisciplinary study of diverse material worlds. We support the innovative scholarship of our faculty and students as well as resident fellows, guest curators and artists, and visiting speakers.

Photo by Fresco Arts Team.

Our Public Humanities + Research department focuses on making scholarly work widely available and accessible through the coordination of the fellowship program and public programming that combines academic research with exhibition-related events. Across the institution—from the classroom to the gallery, from publications to this website—we utilize digital media to facilitate and share original research. This section outlines current programming and provides a repository for past scholarly content.

Jeffrey Quilter gave a Brown Bag Lunch presentation on Thursday, February 23, 2017. His talk was entitled “The Archaeology and History of Colonial Peru: The Case of Magdalena de Cao Viejo.”

The archaeology of the colonial period of Peru is in its infancy. Historical inquiries have dominated the field and, until recently, archaeologists have conducted little research on the topic for a host of reasons. However, this is beginning to change. In this talk, Quilter reviewed how and why these trends took place and presented some of his research at a colonial period site, Magdalena de Cao, on the north coast of Peru. Research that encompasses history and archaeology and science and the humanities provides both new perspectives on the past as well as raises interesting questions as to how different disciplinary traditions may augment, compliment, or contradict one another.


Jeffrey Quilter is the William & Muriel Seabury Howells Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, posts he has held since 2012. Previously, he was Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at the museum (2005–2012), Director of the Pre-Columbian Studies Program at Dumbarton Oaks (1995–2005), and Professor of Anthropology at Ripon College (1980–1995). A native of New York City, he received his undergraduate training at New York University and the University of Chicago and his doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Quilter’s interests range widely with field archaeology experiences in the Americas but especially in Costa Rica and mostly in Peru. Recent publications include The Ancient Central Andes (Routledge, 2014); Treasures of the Incas (Duncan Baird, 2011); and The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages (Peabody Museum Press, 2010). He is currently in residence as a Research fellow at Bard Graduate Center, where he is concentrating on his research interests in the prehistory and history of the north coast of Peru and his recent excavations of an early Peruvian colonial period town, Magdalena de Cao. His goal is to write a book on everyday life in the early colonial period in Peru.