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More About Lynda Jessup

Queen's University
Department of Art History and Art Conservation
Ontario Hall
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6
(613) 533 - 6000, ext. 77343 
(613) 533 - 6891

Lynda Jessup (B.A., McMaster University, and Ph.D., University of Toronto) works in the field of visual cultural studies, specializing in Native North American and Canadian visual culture. Her practice is interdisciplinary, focusing on research in museum representation, environmental history, art and tourism, and art historiography.

Books

Negotiations in a Vacant Lot: Studying the Visual in Canada

Edited by Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton and Kirsty Robertson,McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014. 

Negotiations in a Vacant Lot: Studying the Visual in Canada book cover

At a moment when the discipline of Canadian art history seems to be in flux and the study of Canadian visual culture is gaining traction outside of art history departments, the authors of Negotiations in a Vacant Lot were asked: is "Canada" - or any other nation - still relevant as a category of inquiry? Is our country simply one of many "vacant lots" where class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation interact? What happens to the project of Canadian visual history if we imagine that Canada, as essence, place, nation, or ideal, does not exist? 

The argument that culture is increasingly used as an economic and socio-political resource resonates strongly with the popular strategies of "urban gurus" such as Richard Florida, and increasingly with government policy. Such strategies both contrast with, but also speak to traditions of Canadian state support for culture that have shaped the national(ist) discipline of Canadian art history. The authors of this collection stand at the multiple points where national culture and globalization collide, however, suggesting that academic investigation of the visual in Canada is contested in ways that cannot be contained by arbitrary borders.

Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture

Edited by Lynda Jessup, Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith,Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2008.

Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture book cover

 Marius Barbeau (1883-1969) played a vital role in the shaping of  emergence of Canadian culture in the twentieth century. Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture is designed to extend discussion about Barbeau beyond the life and work framework by providing critical and interpretive approaches to the different aspects of Barbeau. Rooted in the premise that his cultural work –in anthropology, fine arts, music, film, folklore studies, fiction, historiography– cannot be read uni-dimensionally, this book advances the idea that, by merging disciplinary perspectives about Barbeau, we can move toward deepening our evaluations and understandings of the situation around Barbeau.  The sixteen articles that comprise this book bear this idea out, suggesting that Barbeau’s cultural work needs to be considered from a variety of different perspectives, each of which carries with it complex and competing dynamics, as well as a critical and subject context. Together, they present alternative stances from which we might reflect on Barbeau’s historical situation and the implications of his work today.

On Aboriginal Representation in the Gallery


Edited by Lynda Jessup with Shannon Bagg,Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2002. 



On Aboriginal Representation in the Gallery book cover

 In recognizing the established intellectual and institutional authority of Native North American artists, curators and academics working in cultural institutions and universities today, this publication serves as an important primer on key questions accompanying the changing representational practices of the community cultural centre, the public art gallery and the anthropological museum. In this anthology, Native North American and other contributors address current and provocative issues arising from Native North American historical and contemporary art, and its production, collection and exhibition. 


Antimodernism and Artistic Experience: Policing the Boundaries of Modernity

Edited by Lynda Jessup, University of Toronto Press, 2001.

Antimodernism and Artistic Experience: Policing the Boundaries of Modernity book cover

 Antimodernism is a term used to describe the international reaction to the onslaught of the modern world that swept across industrialized Western Europe, North America, and Japan in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. Scholars in art history, anthropology, political science, history, and feminist media studies explore antimodernism as an artistic response to a perceived sense of loss - in particular, the loss of 'authentic' experience. Embracing the 'authentic' as a redemptive antidote to the threat of unheralded economic and social change, antimodernism sought out experience supposedly embodied in pre-industrialized societies - in medieval communities or 'oriental cultures,' in the Primitive, the Traditional, or Folk. In describing the ways in which modern artists used antimodern constructs in formulating their work, the contributors examine the involvement of artists and intellectuals in the reproduction and diffusion of these concepts. In doing so they reveal the interrelation of fine art, decorative art, souvenir or tourist art, and craft, questioning the ways in which these categories of artistic expression reformulate and naturalise social relations in the field of cultural production.

Scholarly Editions

Nass River Indians (Reconstruction)

Concept, research and sequencing by Lynda Jessup 
Intertitle scans and digital reconstruction by Dale Gervais,
Produced in collaboration with the National Archives of Canada, 2001

The beginning of a video, showing the opening credits

 This 35 mm film is a reconstruction of the lost, 1928 film Nass River Indians, which was produced by Associated Screen News Ltd in Montreal specifically for use by the National Museum of Canada. It was first screened in 1928 in conjunction with the National Gallery of Canada "Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art, Native and Modern," a show combining the work of Canadian west coast Aboriginal peoples with paintings and sculptures by prominent Euro-Canadian artists, chief among them the members of the Group of Seven. With the generous support of the National Archives of Canada, the film has been reconstructed as a postcolonial object, which includes introductory intertitles in English and Nisga'a. The film toured internationally in Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893-1941, organized by the Anthology Film Archives and Deutsches Film museum.

Recent Articles

2012       

“Rethinking Relevance,” co-authored with Erin Morton and Kirsty Robertson, in Negotiations in a Vacant Lot: Studying the Visual in Canada, edited by Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton and Kirsty Robertson, McGill-Queen’s University Press, forthcoming. 

The Group of Seven and the Tourist Landscape in Western Canada, or The More Things Change...Journal of Canadian Studies 37 (1): 144-79. Reprinted in “The Group of Seven and the Tourist Landscape in Western Canada, or the More Things Change…” in Interpreting Canada’s Past: A Post-Confederation Reader, ed. J.M. Bumstead, Len Kuffert and Michael Ducharme (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012).

2009

“Looking at Landscape in the Age of Environmentalism,” in Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape, 1860-1918, ed. Hilliard Goldfarb, (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2009), 93-95, 85, 115.
2008 [I misdated as 2007 the two entries below. Please move up to 2008:] 

Marius Barbeau and Early Ethnographic Cinema, in Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture, co-edited with Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith, Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2007, pp. 269-304.

Around and About Marius Barbeau,  co-authored with Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith, in [insert space]Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture, co-edited with Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith, Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2007, pp. 1-12.

2007  

Marius Barbeau and Early Ethnographic Cinema, in Around and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture, co-edited with Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith, Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2007, pp. 269-304.

Around and About Marius Barbeau,  inAround and About Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture, co-edited with Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith, Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2007, pp. 1-12.

Art for a Nation?, reprinted in John O’Brian and Peter White, Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity, and Contemporary Art, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007, pp. 187-92.

2006

Landscapes of Sport, Landscapes of Exclusion: The “Sportsman’s Paradise” in Late Nineteenth Century Canadian Painting,” Journal of Canadian Studies 40.1 (Winter 2005-06): 71-124.

2005

Confessions of a Selfish Teacher, College Quarterly 8.3 (Summer 2005).

2002

The Group of Seven and the Tourist Landscape in Western Canada, or The More Things Change...Journal of Canadian Studies 37 (1): 144-79. Reprinted in People, Places, and Times: Readings in Canadian Social History, vol. 2: Post-Confederation, ed., Cynthia R. Comacchio and Elizabeth Jane Errington (Toronto: Thomson-Nelson, 2006), pp. 462-82.

Hard Inclusion. In On Aboriginal Representation in the Gallery. Edited by Lynda Jessup with Shannon Bagg. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization. Pp. xi-xxviii. 

Moving Pictures and Costume Songs at the 1927 "Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art, Native and Modern." Canadian Journal of Film Studies 11 (1): 144-79. 2001 

James Sibley Watson's Nass River Indians. In Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893-1941. Edited by Bruce Posner. New York: Black Thistle Press/Anthology Film Archives. Pp. 116-20. 

Antimodernism and Artistic Experience: An Introduction. In Antimodernism and Artistic Experience: Policing the Boundaries of Modernity. Edited by Lynda Jessup. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pp. 3-9. 

Bushwhackers in the Gallery: Antimodernism and the Group of Seven. In Antimodernism and Artistic Experience: Policing the Boundaries of Modernity. Edited by Lynda Jessup. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pp. 130-52. 1999 

Tin Cans and Machinery: Saving the Sagas and Other Stuff Visual Anthropology 12: 49-86. Reprinted in www.canadianfilm.ca, 2000, pp. 1-51. 1998 

Prospectors, Bushwhackers, Painters: Antimodernism and the Group of Seven International Journal of Canadian Studies 17 (1): 193-214. 
 

Current Projects

Winners' History: Exhibiting the Group of Seven. 

A study of recent exhibitions of the Group of Seven as sites of official nationalism in Canada, and of the ways in which national art histories function as an operative part of increasingly post-national processes of globalization.        

Honours

2010-11  Fulbright Scholar, Rockefeller Archive Center, New York.
2009   Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision, School of Graduate Studies, Queen’s University.
2003   National Gallery of Canada Research Fellowship in Canadian Historical Art, National Gallery of Canada. 
1998   Queen's University Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching. 
1994   Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts Research Fellowship in Historic Canadian Art, National Gallery of  Canada.

Undergraduate Teaching

ARTH-232  Canadian Art
ARTH-339  Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century
ARTH-433  Art, Tourism and Modernity
ARTH-434  Non-Western Art in Western Collections

Graduate Teaching

ARTH-804 Topics in Critical and Cultural TheoryARTH-804 Art and Globalization
ARTH-805 Art Historiography: Environmental Studies in Art History
ARTH-806 Studies in Iconography: Critical Approaches to Landscape
ARTH-811 Museums, Marginality, and the Mainstream
ARTH-864 Art, Tourism and Modernity
ARTH-868 Assigning a Category: Inuit Video
ARTH-871 Mediating Art and Culture 
ARTH-876 The Art of Cultural Diplomacy

Teaching Development

2003-05  Educational Development Faculty Associate, Centre for Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University
2003-05  Leader, Research Group: Rethinking the Survey, Centre for Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University

Graduate Thesis Supervision

In progress:

Cultural Studies Program
2013 PhD Amanda White, "Looking Plants in the Eye: Human-Nonhuman Communication in Urban Ecological Communities."
2012 PhD Elizabeth Diggon, "Exhibiting Diplomacy: Art and International Cultural Relations in Canada." (co-supervision)
  PhD Erin Sutherland, "Curating as Indigenous Methodology: An Investigation of Indigenous Curatorial Methodologies."
  PhD Ana Ruiz, "Cuba: A Visual Island A Mari Usque Ad Mare." (co-supervision)
2011  
 PhD Lara Fullenweider, "Teaching Loss: Cultural Productions of Reconciliation and Redress of Residential School Experiences in Canada."
  PhD Barbara Meneley, "Unsettling the Last Best West: Restorying Settler Imaginaries."
2010
 PhD   Linda Grussani, “The Exhibition of Indigenous Visual Culture in National Capital Institutions: Working towards Decolonization in Canada, Australia, the United States.”
  MA Erin Sutherland, "Adrian Stimson and Terrance Houle: Exploring Indigenous Masculinities, Analytical Review."
2009
 PhD  Mimi Gellman, “Between the Dreamtime and the GPS/the Metaphysics of Indigenous Mapping.”

 

Department of Art
2012 MA Rebecca Benson, "Art as Lucrative Utopia: An Analysis of Participatory Art's History, Ideals, and Profitability."
  MRP Katherine Vingoe-Cram, "Embalmed Spaces: Locating Folk Art in Canadian Institutions."
  PhD Agnes Landon, "Art and Arctic Sovereignty: Towards Visualizing the North as a Canadian Possession, 1920-1965."
2011 PhD Elysia French, “Crude Ethics: Oil and the Landscape of Environmentalism in Contemporary Visual Culture.” 
  MA Jane Becker Nelson, "Picturing Power: Nationalism and Contemporary Photography in Northern North America."
2010
 MA Elizabeth Diggon, “The Politics of Cultural Power: Canadian Participation at the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Bienal, 1951-1970.”
  MA Agnes Ladon, "The Visual Culture of Arctic Sovereignty: A.Y. Jackson, Lawren S. Harris and Canada’s Eastern Arctic Patrols."
2008 PhD Sarah E.K. Smith, “Exhibitions as Envoys: Art and the Construction of Mexican Identity in the New North America” (co-supervision)
2007
 PhD

Brianne Howard, “Cross-Cultural Negotiations: Three Collections of African Visual and Material Culture in Canada

 

Department of Art
2013 PhD Sarah E.K. Smith, “Art and the Invention of North America, 1985-2012"   (co-supervision)
  MRP

Jane Becker Nelson, “Blurred Identities: An Exhibition Exploring Sex and Gender.”
2012
 PhD Susan Cahill, “Contested Terrains: Visualizing the Nation within Global Military Conflicts.”
  MRP

Alexandra Simpson, “Depicting and Performing the Museum: Contemplating the Art Museum Experience Through the Lens of Contemporary Photography.”
  MA

Elizabeth Diggon, “The Politics of Cultural Power: Canadian Participation at the Venice and São Paulo Biennials, 1951-1958.”
  MA

Agnes Ladon, “The Art of Arctic Sovereignty: A.Y. Jackson, Lawren S. Harris and Canada’s Eastern Arctic Patrols.”
  MA

Erin Sutherland, “Terrance Houle and Adrian Stimson: Exploring Indigenous Masculinities, March 20  th  -22  nd  , 2012: An Analytical Review” (project option).
  PhD

Brianne Howard, Cross-Cultural Negotiations: Three Collections of African Visual and Material Culture in Canadian Cultural Institutions
2011
 PhD Carla Taunton, “Performing Resistance/Negotiating Sovereignty: Performative Interventions by Indigenous Women Performance Artists in Colonial and Post-Colonial Canada, Australia and New Zealand.”
  PhD Debra Antoncic, “Oddballs and Eccentrics (Les Hirsutes et Les Excentriques): Visual Arts and Artists in the Popular Press in Post-war Canada.”
  MA Ellyn Clost, “Voluntourism: The Visual Economy of International Volunteer Program.”
  MA Megan Bylsma, “Nationalism, Cultural Imperialism and the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops.” (co-supervision)
  MRP Alexandra Simpson, "Depicting and Performing Museums: Art Experiences through the Lens of Contemporary Photography."
  MA  Elysia French, “Sights of Desire; Sites of Demise/ The Environment in the Works of Edward Burtynsky and Olafur Eliasson.”
  MRP  Jessica Parker, “Beit Hatfutsot: Exhibiting Israeli National Ideology in the Diaspora Museum.” (co-supervision)
  MRP  Duncan Links, “Challenging the Pecking Order with a Rubber Chicken: Humor in Canadian Folk Art.”
2010
 PhD Andrea Terry, “‘Living History’ in Canada: Representing Victorian Culture in the Multicultural Present.”
  MRP Michelle Bauldic, “Get Riel: The Use of Riel to Create and Signify Identity in Canada.”
2009
 PhD Erin Morton, “Visions which Succeed: Regional Publics and Public Folk Art in Maritime Canada.”
  MA Kaitlin Schwan, “HIV/AIDS and Identity Recovery: STITCHing the Self Back Together.”
  MA Sarah Jones, “Filming the Folk Art-Genius: The ‘Documentation’ of Maud Lewis.”
2008
 PhD Kristin Campbell, “Taste and Nation: Spaces of Viewing in London, 1775-1825.” (co-supervision)
  MA Jocelyn Purdie, “The Neighbourhood Imaginary: Considerations of Local Art Production in Unconventional Public Spaces.” (co-supervision)
  MA Sarah E.K. Smith, “Cultural Brokering: Art, National Identity, and the Influence of Free Trade.”
2007
 PhD Kristy A. Holmes, “Negotiating the Nation: The Work of Joyce Wieland, 1968-1976.”(co-supervision)
  MA Emily Jane Rothwell, “Spinning Public Yarns: Janet Morton's Knitted Works as Dialogues on Urban Locality, Ecological Projects, and Community Histories.” (co-supervision)
2006
 PhD Shannon Bagg, “Artists, Art Historians, and the Value of Contemporary Inuit Art.”
  PhD Kirsty M. Robertson, “Tear-Gas Epiphanies: New Economics of Protest, Vision, and Culture in Canada.”
  PhD Robert Surdu, “Architectonics: A Study of Three Early Twentieth-Century Canadian Buildings and Their Role as Therapeutic Sanctuaries.”
  MA Lindsay Leitch, “Gathering, Mending, Knitting: Craftivism and the Constructive Revolution.”
  MA Anna Samulak, “Krieghoff in Context: Tourism and Colonialism.”
2005
 PhD Brian Donnelly, “Picturing Words, Writing Images: Design Contingent Meaning.”
  PhD Kamille Parkinson, “Philip John Bainbrigge and the Group of 1838: Imperial Landscapes and the Colonial Art Scene in Canada.”
  MA Erin Morton, “Representing Region: Exhibiting Place in Nova Scotia.”
  MA Taryn Sirove, “Pro-Feminist Men, Masculinities and the Habits Video Exhibition (1986): Re-covering a self-critique of patriarchy.” (co-supervision)
  MA Andrea Terry, “Claiming Christmas for the Tourist: "Living History" at Dundurn Castle.”
2004
 PhD J. Keri Cronin, “Manufacturing National Park Nature: Photography, Ecology, and the Wilderness Industry of Jasper National Park.”
  PhD Andrea Kunard, “Promoting Culture Through Photography in the National Gallery of Canada and the Still Photography Division of the National Film Board of Canada.”