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October 2026
Duke has launched a year‑long Provost’s Initiative on the Arts and Humanities, a major university effort to strengthen teaching, research, and creative practice across campus. Interim AAHVS Chair Victoria Szabo is leading the faculty committee charged with mapping arts and humanities curricula and recommending new investments, positioning the department at the center of this work. The initiative will engage students, staff, and faculty in shaping Duke’s future direction and will be accompanied by two public-facing programs—We the People and mosaic—highlighting the convening power of the arts and humanities through exhibitions, coursework, mentorship, and community collaborations.
Trinity Communications at Duke University recently published a feature story on Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History, in which the longtime scholar reflects on the decade‑long research journey behind his new book Colorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect. The Margo Lakin piece, “Richard J. Powell Reconsiders Black Art” highlights Powell’s argument that Black artists should be understood not only through narrative and subject matter but through their formal color choices. It also traces the origins of the project, from an early fascination with Curtis Mayfield’s lyrics to Powell’s lectures at the National Gallery of Art and residencies at major institutions, ultimately showing how his study reframes color as a powerful expressive and cultural force in Black art.
Maurizio Forte, Ph.D., William and Sue Gross Distinguished Professor of Classical Studies, recently co-authored an article with Jacqueline Ortoleva, PhD, "Confronting demons: how acoustic and AI technology brough Etruscan tombs back to life" which is now published on "The Conversation". The Conversation is a not-for-profit network of about eleven regional editions in which academics write the copy and professional journalists edit it, published free-to-republish under Creative Commons. Its own sites draw on the order of 10 million readers a month, but the figure the organization quotes is total reach including republication: roughly 40 million a month, picked up in some 90 countries and 23 languages by outlets like the BBC, Washington Post, Le Monde, Scientific American, PBS and CBS News.
The artists who invented these concepts of telematic art, interactive art, artificial life, bioart, virtual reality and generative art come together at the NEWART Centre in Reus, Catalonia, Spain for the celebration, AND PRAXIS, with an opening symposium and performances on October 22. More than thirty pioneers, authors of The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of New Media Art, Volume II: Artists and Practice, each present a work they have chosen themselves. Bill Seaman, Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, will have his work, Wittgenstein's Handles (Large-format print and text) presented at the exhibition.
If you want to learn more about the plants and animals you come across in the natural world, there’s no shortage of books, field guides, and apps that can help you. But for millennia, natural history was primarily transmitted orally and often centered on practicalities. Which plants are safe? Which ones can hurt you? Which ones have healing properties? Much of that oral tradition has been lost to time, but the path to modern natural field guides can be found in the history of the book. read more about Knowing Nature: Handbooks, Field Guides, and Apps »
“If you had a choice of colors, which one would you choose, my brothers?” Richard J. Powell was a high school student in Chicago when he first heard singer Curtis Mayfield pose that question over the airwaves. “At the time, I was taken aback by the opening lines,” Powell confesses. “Not only was I without an answer, but as a budding visual artist, I was too in love with the entire spectrum to pick just one color.” But the earworm stayed, and decades later became the catalyst for Powell’s research on a… read more about Richard J. Powell Reconsiders Black Art »
Provost Alec D. Gallimore announced Wednesday he will lead a year-long initiative focused on the arts and humanities that will affirm and celebrate the essential role of these fields of study at Duke and establish a strengthened institutional vision for the future.“Duke has a distinguished tradition of leadership in the humanities and the arts, and they remain at the heart of our liberal arts education,” Gallimore said. “Humanistic inquiry and artistic practice enrich our students in countless ways. They offer timeless… read more about Elevating the Arts and Humanities at Duke »
The Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies presented Visualizing Cities and Historic Spaces: 15 Years of Research in Art History and Digital Visual Studies on September 4 at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute’s Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall in Smith Warehouse. Organized by Duke faculty Paul B. Jaskot, Mark Olson, and Victoria Szabo, the daylong conference brought together international scholars and Duke participants to explore digital approaches to analyzing historical cities, architecture,… read more about Visualizing Cities and Historic Spaces »
Transitioning from the world of the living to the underworld was a tangible experience for ancient Etruscans who entered the shadows of their family tombs. These tombs were not only intended to be chambers for the dead; as visitors ventured deeper into the darkness, lit only by candle flame, vision and sound became distorted. Dancers and musicians painted on the walls seemed to come alive, and so did a menacing demon waiting to ambush and swallow its next victim.Etruscan funerary rituals are already known… read more about Duke Classical Studies Professor Maurizio Forte on 2,500-Year-Old Archaeology Mystery »
Duke Chemists Help Unravel the Secrets of Ancient Textiles at Nasher Museum of ArtAnna Sheinberg, Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry, is working with fellow researchers in Trinity College’s Chemistry Department and at the Nasher Museum of Art to uncover new information about some of the ancient, dyed textiles in the Nasher’s collection. Anna Sheinberg and Julia McHugh study and discuss ancient textiles in the Nasher Museum of Art's collection. (Photo… read more about Chemistry Helps Unravel Textiles' Mysteries »
Summer at Duke doesn’t have to mean putting academics on pause. For students who stay on campus, May through August offers something the academic year might not: the freedom to focus on fewer courses, dive into new subjects and make room for experiences that can be tough to fit into a packed schedule. Andrea Marritt-Pabalate Trinity College’s Summer Session lets students earn academic credit without taking on a full semester’s course load. With smaller classes, closer faculty… read more about Summer, Reimagined: The Benefits of Duke Summer Sessions »
Lei He, a student in Duke’s Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts program, has won the gold prize in the Alternative/Experimental category at the 53rd Student Academy Awards for her film, “Drifting.”Born in 1994 and raised along the banks of China’s Yellow River, Lei developed an early awareness of social realities and marginalized communities. Once an aspiring investigative journalist, she has spent the past eight years making documentary films about coal miners, deep-sea fishermen, and women resisting… read more about Duke MFA Student Lei He Wins Academy Award for Experimental Film »
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences is increasing its support for early-stage interdisciplinary research efforts with new funding for four faculty-led research initiatives designed to foster collaboration across the social sciences, natural sciences and arts & humanities. The projects — spanning biodiversity, statistics, mental health, philosophy, cultural heritage and data science — came out of a competitive call for proposals launched last year. Two initiatives, Causality at Duke and BioTA: Biodiversity… read more about Trinity Funds Four New Faculty-Led Research Initiatives »
Lei He, an MFA student in Documentary Studies, is Duke's first ever Student Academy Award Winner. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted 16 students as winners of the 53rd Student Academy Awards® competition. This year, the Student Academy Awards competition received 2,972 entries from 894 colleges and universities worldwide. The 2026 winners join the ranks of such past Student Academy Award® winners as Patricia Cardoso, Pete Docter, Spike Lee, Patricia Riggen and Robert Zemeckis. read more about Lei He '27 (MFA) is Duke's First Student Academy Award Winner »
Inspiration has a way of popping up in unexpected places. Sometimes, it begins by simply noticing something others have overlooked. For Lauren Puckett, manager for the Art, Art History and Visual Studies studios, inspiration came in the form of a broken and boarded-up stained-glass window in an aging Durham church. "I'm an artist trained in stained glass, so every time I drove past, that window was all I could see," she explains. What began as her altruistic desire to restore a piece of local history became… read more about A Window into Community »
This is a summary of an interview by Carol Bales on Duke Center for Documentary Studies.Duke MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts alum Emma Geiger held onto an idea long before it fully took shape. The idea, first proposed in 2018, was to trace her family’s Icelandic roots. It has become Til Íslands (“To Iceland”), a new exhibition at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies (CDS). Visit the exhibition, on view through October 2. The Pitch: Holding on to a Good… read more about This Duke Alumna Traced Her Family History Back to Iceland »
Have you ever wondered how meaning is represented, organized and transformed within AI systems? It turns out the answer looks less like language as we know it and more like a shifting map of relationships between concepts.Before AI can process language, it converts words into numerical representations called “embeddings,” where words with similar meanings are positioned closer together. The Historical Shifts and Geographical Drifts: An Exploration of AI Embedding Space project team explored how these meanings – and their… read more about Trinity Students Reflect on AI-Focused Bass Connections Project »
The 2026 Senior Capstone Exhibition brought together graduating students from Duke's Visual Arts, Cinematic Arts and Documentary Studies programs for an evening celebrating their culminating creative work at the Rubenstein Arts Center on April 20.The exhibition opened with a reception and gallery showcase featuring senior thesis projects by Visual Arts students. Installed throughout the upstairs gallery and painting studio, the exhibition highlighted a diverse range of artistic approaches and served as the culmination of… read more about 2026 Senior Capstone Exhibition »
The Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) and Duke Arts celebrated the conclusion of their 2026 Arts+ and Doc+ summer programs on June 25 with a final showcase highlighting six weeks of collaborative, community-focused creative work by students.The event began with presentations in the CDS Auditorium, where students shared the goals, processes and outcomes of their projects. An open house followed across CDS buildings, featuring gallery exhibitions, interactive installations and other artistic displays. Attendees also… read more about Arts+ & Doc+ Final Showcase »
Consensus is a hard thing to come by these days, but if you ask anyone who was involved in the inaugural 2025-26 Mary Duke Biddle Duke Arts Fellows Program, they will say it has been a triumph.In 2024, then vice provost for the arts John Brown invited several Duke students to imagine a program connecting arts students at Duke with Durham Public Schools (DPS). Musicology Ph.D. student Devon Carter was a member of the 2024 Arts+ cohort, the first of three student teams convened by student engagement manager and program… read more about Creating Together: A New Arts Program Connects Duke and Durham »
Beverly McIver, an emerita professor of the practice in Duke’s Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, has received The Order of the Long Leaf Pine award.It is the highest award for state service given by the office of the governor. McIver, an acclaimed contemporary artist, was one of a dozen recipients of the award from Gov. Josh Stein Tuesday afternoon.The award is given “to persons for exemplary service to the State of North Carolina and their communities that is above and beyond the call of duty and which has… read more about Duke Professor Receives Top State Honor »
A bronzed statue unveiled Saturday pays tribute to John Jasper White, an enslaved mariner and notable figure in North Carolina maritime history....The statue was made by sculptor Stephen Hayes, an art professor at Duke University.“It’s a life-sized statue of John Jasper White and it's bronzed,” Hayes said. “He’s holding a ship wheel and the spear that he would have used to escape with.” read more about Duke art professor Stephen Hayes unveils statue of Currituck Jack »
By the time Brooke Hira graduates, she will have built a Duke experience that stretches across disciplines and interests. Hira, an Art History and Visual Arts major with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and a certificate in Information Science and Studies, has spent the past four years exploring the intersections between technology, creativity and community, which often appeared in places she’d never expected when she first arrived on campus. Looking back, Hira says she wishes her 17-year-old self worried a… read more about The Art of Figuring it Out »
The Office for Faculty Advancement has awarded seed grants to seven new projects led by Duke faculty members. The theme for this grant cycle is “Building Community and Strengthening Networks to Improve the Faculty Experience.”Faculty were invited to propose innovative initiatives to build community, creative approaches to address specific mentorship needs, and novel approaches to improve the faculty experience.The seed grant program will provide financial support for these projects through April 2027. Project leaders… read more about Trinity Faculty Awarded Seed Grants by Duke Office of Faculty Advancement »
Master’s student Sarah Soucek (Experimental and Documentary Arts) is the winner of the 2026 Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship. This annual award recognizes the crucial leadership and mentorship roles that graduate/professional students and postdocs play on Bass Connections teams.About Sarah SoucekSoucek is a graduate student focusing on experimental and documentary arts. Her work explores how the relationship between interviewer and interviewee shapes the way stories are told. In her role as a team… read more about Trinity MFA Student Sarah Soucek Wins Award for Outstanding Mentorship »
Cassandra Klos grew up in a self-declared “Trekkie household,” where science fiction and outer space weren’t far-off frontiers but constant companions that flickered across her television, threaded through dinner-table conversations and took up permanent residence in her imagination. In elementary school, that fascination found a gravitational pull in Christa McAuliffe. Though Klos was born after the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the legacy of the Concord teacher-astronaut remained deeply embedded in… read more about Framing the Cosmos Through Art and Imagination »
The Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University, North Carolina, is seeking qualified candidates for a Studio Arts Instructor position for the Fall 2026/Spring 2027 academic year. The Instructor will teach four courses, two in drawing, and two in painting. They will also have an exhibition scheduled for their work during the Spring semester. Candidates must have graduated from an accredited institution with a terminal degree in a field related to the Studio Arts. Candidates with experience… read more about Open Position: Studio Arts Instructor »
The Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies is seeking two Post-MFA instructors in Cinematic and Visual Arts for a one-year teaching appointment. Eligible candidates must have graduated from the MFA|EDA program at Duke in 2024, 2025 or 2026, and have their degree in hand at the time they begin teaching at Duke. The total course load for each position is four courses during the 26/27 academic year. Among their assigned courses, the Post-MFA in Cinematic Arts will teach two sections of Moving Image Practice,… read more about Open Position: Post-MFA instructor in Cinematic and Visual Arts »
Duke University has awarded distinguished professorships to 38 faculty and will recognize them in a ceremony at the Washington Duke Inn on May 18.“I am delighted to recognize these faculty members with distinguished professorships,” said President Vincent E. Price. “Their work reflects a deep commitment to excellence in research and education, advancing new ideas and discoveries that benefit society and inspire future generations.”Distinguished professorships honor faculty who are well-established members of the Duke… read more about Seven Trinity Faculty Members Among Duke's New Distinguished Professors »
Beverly McIver, an emerita professor of the practice in Duke’s Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, has received The Order of the Long Leaf Pine award.It is the highest award for state service given by the office of the governor. McIver, an acclaimed contemporary artist, was one of a dozen recipients of the award from Gov. Josh Stein Tuesday afternoon.The award is given “to persons for exemplary service to the State of North Carolina and their communities that is above and beyond the call of duty and which has… read more about Professor Beverly McIver Receives Top State Honor »
An exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art showcases the experimental tapestries of artist and violinist Silvia Heyden, who made Durham her home for decades. The show brings her work back to campus more than 50 years after her first Duke exhibition and features pieces shaped by the music, landscapes and daily life that inspired her practice. Heyden died in 2015 at age 88.After settling in Durham in 1966, Heyden created tapestries reflecting inspiration from landscapes of the American Southeast, particularly the Eno… read more about Duke Students Curate an Exhibition of the Work of Durham Artist Silvia Heyden »
By his sophomore year of high school, Sam Stayn knew he wanted a career with purpose — he just didn’t know what form it would take. During the pandemic, Stayn enrolled in a virtual summer program at the Boston Architectural College. It was meant to be an exploratory, short introduction to design. Instead, it was transformative.“I realized that I needed a career path where creativity, analytical thinking and the act of making things are inseparable,” he says. That path widened his senior year, thanks to an environmental… read more about Designing with the Climate in Mind »
Art History Lecture"Thinking with Occupied Iraq, 1941-1945: On Forms and Freedom"Anneka LenssenAssociate Professor of Global Modern ArtUniversity of California, BerkeleyWednesday • March 18 • 4:30PMSmith Warehouse, Bay 10, Room A266What city will be the next center of advanced art? We’ve heard this question before. But circa 1941, with Paris occupied, the answer was undecided—and in Baghdad, artists, soldiers, and former prisoners of war (who were themselves also artists and soldiers),… read more about Art History Lecture: Lenssen »
A new exhibit at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Ackland Art Museum is something of a homecoming for documentary photographer Bill Bamberger.The UNC alumnus and Duke University professor spent the past two academic years photographing and working with more than 250 students at Durham School of the Arts for the newest iteration of his series "Boys Will Be Men." But, the story behind the project actually starts about 40 years ago. read more about "Bill Bamberger: Boys Will Be Men" Exhibit Is Investigating Manhood Through the Lens of Local High Schoolers »