The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the 2022 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellows in American Art. This year, the fellowships recognize seven outstanding doctoral candidates for their promising research in American art history. The program is made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

Since 1992, the Luce/ACLS program has supported more than 300 early-career scholars as they pursue dissertations on the history of the visual arts of the United States, including all facets of Native American art. The awards are designed to promote emerging leaders and advance cutting-edge scholarship in American art history, welcoming research approaches that elevate voices, narratives, and subjects that have been historically underrepresented and under-studied in the academy. The 2022 fellows join previous recipients who are now some of the country’s most distinguished college and university faculty, museum professionals, and leaders in the cultural sector.

The winning research projects explore timely and engaging topics that advance and expand the field of art history, including an examination of four contemporary Latinx artists and their relationship to maps, geography, and space; self-representation in Hawaiian royal photography; and artistic responses to the legacies of nuclear weapons testing and the global inheritances of the Cold War.

Their research can amplify voices and perspectives of indigenous populations, communities of color, and on complex historical narratives that have often been muted in retellings of our American history. ACLS President Joy Connolly

“ACLS is proud of our continued partnership with the Luce Foundation in supporting the exciting work of these emerging scholars,” said ACLS President Joy Connolly. “Their research can amplify voices and perspectives of indigenous populations, communities of color, and on complex historical narratives that have often been muted in retellings of our American history.”

Each fellow will receive $42,000 to support one year of research and writing as well as fellowship-related travel during any nine-to-twelve-month period between July 2022 and May 2024. The 2022 fellowship recipients are:

  • Emily Cornish, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Indigenous Women and Photography in the Kingdom of Hawaii: Tradition and Modernity through Self-representation and Patronage
  • Taryn Ely, University of Rochester, A Medium of Madness: Neurodiversity in American Experimental Cinema
  • Katherine Gregory, University of Texas at Austin, Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Mind: Robert S. Duncanson in Europe and America
  • Angela Pastorelli-Sosa, University of California, Berkeley, X Marks the Spot: Latinx Artists Mapping Space (Ellen Holtzman Fellow)
  • Dylan Volk, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Lips Touch: Lesbian Aesthetic Strategies and the Body Impolitic, 1990-1999
  • Zoe Weldon-Yochim, University of California, Santa Cruz, Atomic Afterlives: Visualizing Nuclear Toxicity in Art of the United States, 1979-2011         
  • Serda Yalkin, Duke University, Diasporic Visions: Nuyorican Photography in the 1970s and 1980s

Meet the New Luce/ACLS Fellows and Learn About Their Research Projects.

The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to enrich public discourse by promoting innovative scholarship, cultivating new leaders, and fostering international understanding. Established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., the Luce Foundation advances its mission through grantmaking and leadership programs in the fields of Asia, higher education, religion and theology, art, and public policy.