Faculty

Barbara Abou-El-Haj

Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies

Office: Fine Arts 217
Phone: (607) 777-2112
E-mail: abouel@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Social history of medieval art and architecture; political economy of monastery and cathedral towns and of the medieval cult of saints; Frontier Cultures and Convivencia in Medieval Spain.

Karen Barzman

Associate Professor

Office: Fine Arts 220B
Phone: (607) 777-2009
E-mail: kbarzman@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Early modern visual and material culture; the institutions of art, art education, and criticism; art, religion, and the state in the early modern era; feminist theory, gender studies, and feminist histories of art.

Kevin Hatch

Assistant Professor 

Office: Fine Arts 319
Phone: (607) 777-2701
E-mail: khatch@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Twentieth-century and contemporary art; American art and visual culture; new media practices; media theory.

Tom McDonough

Associate Professor
Department Chair
Associated Faculty: Philosophy, Interpretation & Culture and Comparative Literature

Office: Fine Arts 305
Phone: (607) 777-2847
E-mail: tmcdonou@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Postwar and contemporary art and architecture; spatial theory and the culture of cities; critical theory.

Pamela Smart

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Art History

Office: Science I - 233
E-mail: psmart@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Anthropology of artworlds; museums studies; cultural formations of modernity and postmodernity; symbolic economies of exchange and political economies of collecting, patronage and philanthropy under globalization; cultures of expertise.

John Tagg

Professor of Art History and Comparative Literature

Office: Fine Arts 227
Phone: (607) 777-3077
E-mail: jtagg@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Histories of photography; twentieth-century American cultural history; cultural theory and criticism; the history of art history.

Nancy Um

Director of Graduate Studies
Associate Professor of Art History

Office: Fine Arts 307
Phone: (607) 777-5864
E-mail: nancyum@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Islamic art and architecture; material, visual and built culture of the Indian Ocean; commercial and domestic architecture; port cities and urbanism; early modern commerce and cross-cultural exchange

Julia Walker

Assistant Professor 

Office: Fine Arts 343A
Phone: (607) 777-3810
E-mail: walkerj@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism; architectural theory; social and political memory in postwar German visual culture.

Andrew Walkling

Dean's Assistant Professor

Office: Fine Arts 226
Phone: (607) 777-5251
E-mail: walkling@binghamton.edu

Specialization: Early Modern Britain: court culture, politics of cultural production, including art and architecture, literature, music, and theater

Brian Wall

Assistant Professor of Cinema and Art History

E-mail: bwall@binghamton.edu

Specialization: film theory, film noir and the historical avant-garde

Faculty Publications and Awards

Chris Focht

Photographer

Office: Fine Arts 188
Phone: (607) 777-6803
Fax: (607) 777-4466
Office Hours: By appointment

Specialization: Photographer for the Departments of Art History, Art, and Theater.

Chris Focht holds a BFA and MA from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Marcia Focht

Curator of Visual Resources

E-mail: mfocht@binghamton.edu
Office: Fine Arts 143
Phone: (607) 777-2215
Fax: (607) 777-4466

Marcia Focht has been the Curator of the Visual Resources Collection since 1986. She was awarded a BFA in Printmaking and an MA in Art History from the University of Denver. Marcia is currently Secretary of the Visual Resources Association, the International Association of Image Media Professionals. She has long served as the VRA's Mentor Coordinator, oversees the popular Ask the Expert VRA conference event, and is also part of the ARTstor Hosting Advisory group.

Marcia's recent activity includes presenting "Leveraging ARTstor as a Campus-Wide Digital Image Library" at the Conference on Instructional Technology, SUNY Plattsburgh, 2007 and Co-Taught the CCO Workshop Cataloging Cultural Objects: A Guide to Describing Cultural Works and Their Images and presented "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? The VRA at 25: Understanding our Past & Framing a Future." for the Silver Jubilee Session at the Visual Resources Association Annual conference, Kansas City, 2007.

Sylvia Rabeler

Assistant to the Chair

E-mail: srabeler@binghamton.edu
Office: Fine Arts 219
Phone: (607) 777-2112
Fax: (607) 777-4466

Sylvia Rabeler serves as the Assistant to the Chair in the Art History Department at Binghamton University. She is also an artist, and a student. Sylvia is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Systems Science, in the T.J. Watson School of Engineering at Binghamton University. Her doctoral work applies systems science to abstract art.