Kelvin Parnell

PhD student, University of Virginia

I am a second year Ph.D. student specializing in 19th and early 20th-century American art focusing on the intersections of critical race theory and national identity.  Additionally, I am interested art historical theory and methodology, specifically aesthetics.  My dissertation topic is on 19th century American bronze sculpture and crafting racial and national identity.  I look at artists like Henry Kirke Brown, Thomas Ball, Quincy Adams Ward and Meta Warrick Fuller and the ways in which they depict American nationalism and racial representations through body aesthetics.  Moreover, my dissertation will examine what type of semiotic visual language these artists communicate through representations of the body.