Joan Saab, who studies American art history and visual culture, has been appointed as the Susan B. Anthony Professor. The Board of Trustees approved the appointment in January.
Saab teaches courses on American art and architecture, material culture, urban studies, and digital media studies, including Cultural History of American Architecture, the Politics of Space, and Material Culture in the Digital Age.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and art history from Tufts University, a master’s degree in American Studies and Museum Studies from George Washington University, and a PhD in American Studies from New York University. Her first book, For the Millions: American Art and Culture Between the Wars, was the inaugural volume in the Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America series, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her second project, a born-digital “book” entitled Searching for Siqueiros and written on the digital publishing platform Scalar, is under review with the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Saab has received funding from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Getty Research Center at UCLA, as well as a University Pump Primer grant for her collaborative digital humanities project that features an interactive 3-D recreation of Rochester’s landmark railroad station, which was designed by noted architect Claude Bragdon and torn down in the 1960s.
Saab joined the University in 1999 and the Department of Art and Art History in 2005. From 2006 to 2012, she directed the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, and since 2012 has been chair of the Department of Art and Art History. She is on the executive board of the Memorial Art Gallery and is the faculty director of the Program for Photographic Preservation and Collections Management, which jointly administered through the University and the George Eastman Museum.