Catherine M. Soussloff's research explores the historiography, theory, and philosophy of art in the European tradition from the Early Modern period (ca. 1400) to the present. She has published books and over forty essays and articles, and she has lectured extensively in Canada, Europe, the U.K., ...
Catherine M. Soussloff's research explores the historiography, theory, and philosophy of art in the European tradition from the Early Modern period (ca. 1400) to the present. She has published books and over forty essays and articles, and she has lectured extensively in Canada, Europe, the U.K., the U.S.A., and South America. Professor Soussloff has advised and supervised M.A. and Ph.D. graduates in Art History, Visual and Cultural Studies, History of Consciousness, Literature, and History. Known for her comparative and historical approaches to the central theoretical concerns of art history and aesthetics, Soussloff’s recent publications have focused on: Performance theory and visual culture, theories of painting from Leonardo da Vinci to contemporary post-structuralism, concepts of the Baroque, Viennese art and culture in the early 20th century, Jewish studies and art history, contemporary theories of the image, and curatorial practice. She is presently preparing two books for publication: Michel Foucault and Painting and Theory for Art in the Late Twentieth Century. Soussloff’s views on Foucault are featured in the Slovenian art mockumentary: MY NAME IS JANEZ JANЉA (dir. Janez Jansa).
Before coming to UBC in 2010 as Head of the department, Professor Soussloff taught for twenty-four years at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she held a prestigious University of California Presidential Chair in Visual and Performance Studies and the first Patricia and Rowland Rebele Chair in the History of Art. For twelve years Soussloff was Director of Visual and Performance Studies, an international and multi-disciplinary faculty-graduate research initiative. In that capacity she programmed major conferences and an annual seminar series, funded by competitively awarded grants. She recently served as Chair of the Editorial Board of the Art Journal (College Art Association of America) and she was a founding editor of Images: Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture. She is a member of the board of Live Vancouver, the city’s performance art biennale and the preeminent performance art festival in Canada.
Professor Soussloff has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Getty Research Institute, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the College Art Association of America, the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania and the Institute for the Humanities at New York University. In summer 2011 Soussloff was resident at the University of California, Irvine where she held a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar fellowship for the study of Walter Benjamin’s Later Writings.