art_history
Department of Art and Art History

Eleanor Greenhill Symposium

About Eleanor Simmons Greenhill

Dr. Eleanor Greenhill is a distinguished Medievalist and one of the formative forces behind the development of the graduate art history program at The University of Texas at Austin.

Eleanor Simmons Greenhill grew up in Lubbock, Texas and she discovered a passion for Latin in high school. She received her undergraduate degree from Texas Tech University in 1934 and her MA in Comparative Medieval Literature in 1945 from Columbia University, New York. While at Columbia, she studied with Roger Sherman Loomis, one of the foremost authorities on medieval and Arthurian literature.

In 1947 she moved to Germany with her husband, an attorney representing the United States at the Nuremberg Trials. During her 13-year residence, she pursued her doctorate in the History of Art at the University of Munich, receiving her degree in 1959. Dr. Greenhill taught at the University of Chicago until she arrived at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1960s, where she continued teaching and held the Ashbel Smith Professorship at the time of her retirement in 1985.

Dr. Greenhill is a noted scholar of French Gothic manuscripts. Her publications include Die geistigen Voraussetzungen der Bilderreihe des Speculum virginum; Versuch einer Deutun. /Munster, Westf /1962. She also authored the Dictionary of Art, New York, 1974, as well as many articles.

In 1988 the art history faculty at the University of Texas at Austin voted to honor Eleanor Greenhill's longstanding support of the graduate program in art history by dedicating the annual graduate student symposium to her. Henceforth, the symposium was called the Eleanor Greenhill Art History Symposium.

Eleanor Greenhill passed away in 2009.

About the Eleanor Greenhill Symposium

The Eleanor Greenhill Symposium is an annual event that provides an opportunity for art history graduate students to present their research to the larger departmental and campus community. The symposium is designed both to encourage the sharing of ideas and to showcase the work of our graduate students.

In addition to providing a space for students to share their scholarship, the symposium also provides an opportunity to mingle with other students and faculty. It is an excellent time for prospective students to visit the department.

Papers Presented, 2011

  • Kara Carmack, PhD Student, “Making Histories, Making Communities: Cave Girls and the Construction of Worlds without Men”
  • Mirka C. Fetté, MA Student, “Making Ludic Propaganda: the Use of Analogy in a Broadsheet from the Thirty Years’ War”
  • Claire Howard, MA Student, “Making it Perfect: The Alchemical James Lee Byars”
  • Jennie Lamensdorf, MA Student, “Tactical Amnesia: Historicizing Uranium Mining at the New Mexico Mining Museum”
  • Breton Langendorfer, MA Student, “The Fame of His Deeds is Ubiquitous”: Tamerlane and the Use of Performative Urbanism”
  • Michael Long, MA Student, "Public Humor, Private Parts: 'tab' figurines and ritual humor at La Blanca"
  • Allison Myers, PhD Student, "The Urban Cathedral: Scenes of Daily Life on the South Transept of Notre-Dame in Paris"

Papers Presented, 2010

  • Ashley Busby, “Science in the Streets: Astronomy and Popular Culture in Surrealist Paris”
  • Kate Dempsey, “Decoding Ray Johnson”
  • Joelle Lardi, “The Eccentric and the Engineer: A Re-Examination of Emperor Claudius' Monumental Architecture in the City of Rome”
  • Ufuk Soyoz, “Actors, Kings, and Audience: A Political History of the Hellenistic Theatre at Pergamon”
  • Jessica Weiss, “Art and Agency in the Cantigas de Santa Maria”

Papers Presented, 2009

  • Katie Anania, “Blocked Landscapes: Masking and the Politics of Preservation in Alberto Burri's Grande Cretto”
  • Heather Atkinson, “The Iconography of Miniature Containers: A Re-examination of Miniature Vessel Attachments on Greek Geometric Pottery”
  • Katie Geha, “Still Life: Detailing the German Autumn through Gerhard Richter's Tote (Dead)”
  • Tara Kohn, “Writing in Stone: Alter Kacyzne's Old Road-Maker in Ostroleka, Poland”
  • Caitlin Schloss, “Dancing with Death: The Funerary and Erotic Content of a Gorgon Plate from Camiros Rhodes in the British Museum Collection”

Papers Presented, 2008

  • Estéban Hinojosa, “An Exception to the Rule: Giuseppe Cesari and The Edict of Rusticucci.”
  • Ariel C. Evans, “The Amrita Project: the Curatorial and Artistic Historicization of Amrita Sher-Gil.”
  • Tatiana Reinoza Perkins, “Performing Migration: the art of Guillermo Gómez-Peña.”
  • Joelle Lardi, “The Neighbourhood Baths of Ostia in their Urban and socio-economic context.”
  • Andy Campbell, “A Second Emancipation-or How the LAPD Freed the Slaves (Again).”

Papers Presented, 2007

  • Tracy Lea Hensley, “Deciphering the Grotesque: Four Bronzes from the House of the Ephebe, Pompeii”
  • Kimberly L. Jones, “Visual Actors and Ritual Spaces: Comparing Monumental Centers in Early Pre-Hispanic Peru”
  • Joshua L. McConnell, “Israhel van Meckenham's Namensornament: The Medium is the Message/Perception is the Medium”
  • Rachel Mohl, “A Kabbalistic Exchange: Xul, Borges and Jewish Mysticism”
  • Peter Mowris, “Mimicry and Mourning: Christina Fernandez and Maria's Great Expedition”

Papers Presented, 2006

  • Deborah Spivak, “The Cosmic Turtle Reborn: Reconfiguring Iconography on Izapa Stela 8.”
  • Lea Cline, “Augustus' Altar-ed State: The Altars of the Lares Augusti on Augustan quadrantes.”
  • Rowena Houghton Dasch, “Charles Bird King's Itinerant Artist: Fictitious Self-Portrait as Genre”
  • Melissa Warak, “Zen and the Art of La Monte Young.”
  • Alex Codlin, “The Sadness of Our Art: Experiencing the Borderland in Gilbert & George's early sculptures.”
  • Kathryn Hixson, “Tell me everything: Historical Redemption in Richard Prince's Joke Paintings.”

Papers Presented, 2005

  • Beth Gardiner, “The Appiades in the Forum Iulium: A Fountain of Divine Legitimacy”
  • Lee Hallman, “Reconsidering the Conversion: The Catholic Reformation and Caravaggio's Two St. Pauls”
  • Caitlin Haskell, “Horizontal Stabilizer, Diachronic Shock”
  • Alberto McKelligan Hernandez, “'Serena era un angel' Visual Representations in Selena 'cyber-altares '”
  • Adrian Kohn, “Robert Irwin's New Mode of Seeing, 1962-1969”
  • Kirk Nickel, “The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception: An Evolving Iconographic Type”