In the thick of the quarantine, grad student Faith Barringer defended her master of arts thesis in art history on Zoom. Barringer’s faculty committee, made up of UA professors of art history Drs. Tanja Jones (chair), Lucy Curzon, Rachel Stephens, Doris Sung and UAB art historian Dr. Heather McPherson, interrogated her about her thesis research on three eighteenth-century women artists, titled “Creating a Female History Painter: Vigée-LeBrun, Labille-Guiard, Mongez, and the French Academy.” Barringer passed the defense with high distinction. She will graduate in August and will begin PhD studies at the University of Florida in the fall, under the direction of acclaimed art historian Melissa Hyde.
In 2019 Barringer was awarded the S. Eric Molin Prize for the best presentation by a graduate student at the annual meeting of the East Central American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (EC/ASECS) in Gettysburg. The award was for her related research, “The Coquette, the Libertine and Fragonard: An Intertextual Look at The Stolen Kiss.” In 2020 Barringer was awarded departmental honors as the most outstanding graduate student in art history.
For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, visit our Degree Programs page.