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Riley Balzer is a graduate teaching assistant in art history. She will assist in Survey of Art I, Intro to Visual Arts and Early Medieval Art. Balzer received the BA in art history with a minor in French and Francophone studies from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2017. She worked as a curatorial intern under the current assistant director of the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture during 2016-2017 academic year. In 2013, she served as an intern for the East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville. Balzer was also a professional ballroom dance instructor.

Balzer’s interests in art history lie primarily in the Renaissance/Baroque period. Her undergrad senior research paper, “Artemisia Gentileschi: Criticisms of the Feminist Perspective,” looked at the ways early feminist scholars may have done more harm to Gentileschi’s artistic reputation than they intended. Balzer sought to show changes in feminist scholarship since that time. At the end of her senior year, she was recognized as the top graduating art history major at UT-Knoxville.

Recent Presentations

“Deconstructing Nazi Visual Politics, Symbolic Representations of Power, and The Savior Complex: Notre-Dame de Paris from 1940 to 1944,” 28th Annual Graduate Student Symposium, The University of Alabama, March 31, 2023

“Deconstructing Nazi Visual Politics, Symbolic Representations of Power, and The Savior Complex: Notre-Dame de Paris from 1940–1944,” Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, Harvard University, March 16-18, 2023

“Connoisseurs vs. Forgers: A Conversation on the Intersections of Art Forgery, Patronage, and Methodology,” SECAC 2022, Baltimore, Maryland

“Connoisseurs vs. Forgers: A Conversation on the Intersections of Art Forgery, Patronage, and Methodology,” 27th Annual Graduate Student Symposium in Art History, First Place, Best Paper Award, March 2022, University of Alabama at Birmingham

“Artemisia Gentileschi: Criticisms of the Feminist Perspective,” 22nd Annual Graduate Student Symposium in Art History, undergraduate poster session, 2017, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama