Amherst’s Russian Icons: Understanding and Teaching with the Original Works of Art, with guest scholar Wendy Salmond. The Mead Art Museum invites brief applications for its next Mellon-funded Faculty Course Development Seminar, featuring works from the Mead’s holdings of Russian icons. The seminar is open to Five College faculty members from any discipline curious to learn more about Russian icons of the 16th through 19th centuries and to explore opportunities for incorporating original works of art from the Mead’s collection into their teaching and research.
Led by renowned scholar Prof. Wendy R. Salmond of Chapman University, participants will learn in depth and hands-on about the function, construction, and significance of these objects, and explore their key stylistic characteristics, their iconography, their value for reconstructing socio-political relations, and their role in the history of collecting practices. The seminar will also investigate ways faculty can develop innovative teaching strategies using these works of art in a wide variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, Anthropology, Chemistry, History, History of Art, Literature, Mathematics, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Russian, and Sociology.
Eligibility and selection criteria: Five College faculty members in any discipline are eligible to apply. The seminar is limited to TWELVE participants. Successful applicants will exhibit a strong commitment to exploring experimental teaching strategies and to learning new ways to integrate the museum’s collections into their course offerings.
Stipend for participants: Participants will receive a stipend of $500.
To apply: Please send your name and position title together with a statement of no more than 300 words explaining how attendance at this seminar could enhance your teaching and research to prussell@amherst.edu. Application deadline: Monday, March 15, 2010. _For further information: Contact Dr. Pamela J. Russell, Andrew W. Mellon Coordinator of College Programs, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002, prussell@amherst.edu, 413-542-8229.
Guest Scholar: Prof. Salmond is a scholar of Russian and early Soviet art, architecture, and design. She is particularly interested in exploring the intersection of diverse cultural traditions in Russia and in the formation of national identity. She has written and lectured extensively on the Arts and Crafts movement, on Art Nouveau, and on Russian modernism. Her current project is a book tracing transformations in the perception and function of icons in Russia, from objects of devotion to works of art. Her most recent publication on icons is “Russian Icons and American Money,” in Treasures into tractors: the selling of Russia’s cultural heritage, 1918-1938 (University of Washington Press, 2009).
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