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UA Art History Students Form New Group, The Guild

Art and Art History students and faculty stand before the Cathedral of Saint Mary in Toledo.
Art and Art History students and faculty congregate for a group photo at the Cathedral of Saint Mary in Toledo, Spain.

A small group of University of Alabama art history students who “love what we do” recently unveiled their new website and Instagram page (@theguild_bama). The UA Society of Art History Students, also known as “The Guild,” formed in order to share thoughts and ideas about art history, share and get feedback from their peers on research, and organize art history-related activities.

The Guild’s first Instagram post invited “all disciplines, eras, and levels [of interest to] join us for discussion, camaraderie, and art history!”

Officers are Olivia Bennes, president; Olivia Janson, vice-president; Sophia Ancira, treasurer; and Olivia Sims, grad student representative (or Il Vecchio). Bennes is a senior art history major and MEMES and public relations minor; Janson is a senior art history major and MEMES and Italian minor. Ancira is a senior art history and marketing major and Blount Scholars Program minor; and Sims is a first-year art history/museum studies graduate student. (MEMES stands for the minor in Medieval and Early Modern European Studies.)

Sims said the new website “is meant to be a resourceful forum and hub for art history students, members of The Guild, and those with a keen interest in art history.” She added, “We are accepting any research art history students are working on that they would like to share.”

Graduate student in art history Reed O’Mara studies a reproduction of the Uta Codex in the rooms of the Price Collection in Garland Hall.
Graduate student in art history Reed O’Mara studies a reproduction of the Uta Codex in the rooms of the Dr. and Mrs. William T. Price Asian Art Book Collection in Garland Hall.

The Blog section of the website already has several research papers posted. Olivia Sims posted a “teaser” and the full text of her research paper about the leading 19th-century women’s rights activist Barbara Bodichon’s writings about the health of corset wearing. Sims wrote it for Dr. Jennifer Feltman’s ARH 550 Art History Methods course.

The Resource page includes those for both graduate students and undergraduates, such as tips for applying to grad school and dates for upcoming conferences like SECAC, CAA and ICMA.

Anyone interested in joining The Guild should head to this page on the website or email Olivia Sims.

More information about all the student groups in the UA Department of Art and Art History.

For information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, visit our Degree Programs page.