faculty

laurie monahan, associate professor
curriculum vitae

specialization

Surrealism, French art (interwar period) European 20th-century Art, American Post-WWII Art, Visual Culture, Critical Theory

office

Arts 1141, Mondays 1:30 -2:30 & by appointment

phone

805 893 5123

Ph.D. Harvard University

Laurie Monahan specializes in early 20th century European painting and visual culture, with an emphasis on Surrealism and related movements from the 1920s and 1930s. Her research interests extend into the post-WWII period, with a focus on cultural relations between Europe and the United States in the post-World War II period, and the 1960s in particular. Her publications include essays on André Masson, Henri Matisse and the photographer Claude Cahun; she has published on the avant-garde journal Documents and art historian/critic Carl Einstein; she has also published on Robert Rauschenberg and the Venice Biennale in 1964. She is currently finishing a book entitled A Knife into Dreams: André Masson, Massacres, and Surrealism of the 1930s, which addresses the politics of violence and myth and their relationship to French radical politics of the 1930s through the work of André Masson. Monahan's next major project, Kiosk Culture, focuses on French visual culture through Parisian photo-journals and avant-garde publications of the interwar period.

Critical continental theory has been central to Monahan's methodological approach, and interdisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of her research. Interested in creating a university-wide forum for scholars and students working on visual materials from a variety of perspectives, including film, art production, art history and history, she founded and convened the Visual Culture Research Focus Group, sponsored by UCSB's Interdisciplinary Humanities Center in 2002—03 and again in 2004—05. Committed to extending the parameters of scholarly research beyond the boundaries of the University itself, Monahan has been a participant as both a presenter and respondent in the "Works in Progress" series at the Getty Research Center (Getty Center, Los Angeles) and invited to the workshops the Center sponsors around particular exhibitions (e.g. Lee Miller).