Photo: Christopher B. Steiner  © 2004

C h r i s t o p h e r   B.   S t e i n e r

Lucy C. McDannel '22 Professor of Art History and Director of Museum Studies

Department of Art History & Architectural Studies
Connecticut College, 270 Mohegan Avenue
New London, Connecticut 06320  USA

T: 860-439-2797 / F: 860-439-5339
christopher.steiner@conncoll.edu / http://www.christophersteiner.com

 

Curriculum Vitae (download)

Photo of Christopher Steiner (download)

Publications

Books

> African Art in Transit (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

IMAGES FROM TEXT:

Fig 1; Fig 2; Fig 3; Fig 4; Fig 5; Fig 6; Fig 7; Fig 8; Fig 9;
Fig 10; Fig 11; Fig 12; Fig 13; Fig 14; Fig 15; Fig 16; Fig 17; Fig 18; Fig 19; Fig 20; Fig 21; Fig 22; Fig 23; Fig 24; Fig 25; Fig 26; Fig 27; Fig 28; Fig 29; Fig 30; Fig 31; Fig 32; Fig 33; Fig 34; Fig 35; Fig 36; Fig 37; Fig 38; Fig 38 (detail) Fig 39; Fig 40; Fig 41; Fig 42; Map 1; Map 2; Map 3.

All images (zip format)

- Review by Alfred Gell in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 1(4), 1995. (download)

- Review by Paul Stoller in The Journal of African History 36(1), 1995 (download)

- Review by Jonathan Zilberg in International Journal of African Historical Studies, 28(2), 1995 (download)

> Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation, written and edited with Roy Richard Grinker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997).

- Review by Milton Krieger in The International Journal of African Historical Studies 31(1), 1998 (download)

> Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, edited and introduced with Ruth B. Phillips. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
 

Articles and Book Chapters

> "The Tradition of African Art: Reflections on the Social Life of a Subject," pp. 88-109. In Questions of Tradition, edited by Mark Salber Phillips and Gordon Schochet. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (2004)
 
> "The Taste of Angels in the Art of Darkness: Fashioning the Canon of
African Art," pp. 132-145. In Art History and Its Institutions, edited by Elizabeth Mansfield. New York: Routledge. (2002)

> "Art/Anthropology/Museums: Revulsions and Revolutions," pp. 399-417. In Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines, edited by Jeremy MacClancy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (2002)

> "Rights of Passage: On the Liminal Identity of Art in the Border Zone," pp. 207-231. In The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture, edited by Fred R. Myers. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. (2001)

> "Art, Authenticity, and the Baggage of Cultural Encounter," with Ruth Phillips, pp. 3-19. In Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, edited by Ruth Phillips and Christopher Steiner. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1999)

> "Authenticity, Repetition, and the Aesthetics of Seriality: The Work of
Tourist Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," pp. 87-103. In Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, edited by Ruth Phillips and Christopher Steiner. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1999) Fig. 6.4; Fig. 6.5

> "Discovering African Art ... Again?," African Arts 29(4): 1-8, 93. (1996) (download)

> "Can the Canon Burst?," The Art Bulletin 78(2): 213-17. (1996) (download)

> "Travel Engravings and the Construction of the Primitive," pp. 202-225, 416-418. In Prehistories of the Future: The Primitivist Project and the Culture of Modernism, edited by Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (1995)

> "The Art of the Trade: On the Creation of Value and Authenticity in the African Art Market," pp. 151-165. In The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology, edited by George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1995) (hi-res images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

> "Museums and the Politics of Nationalism," Museum Anthropology 19(2): 3-7. (1995) (download)

> "Technologies of Resistance: Structural Alteration of Trade Cloth in Four Societies," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 119: 75-94 (1994) (download)

> "The Invisible Face: Masks, Ethnicity, and the State in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa," Museum Anthropology 16(3): 53-57. (1992) (download)

> "The Trade in West African Art," African Arts 24(1): 38-43, 100-101 (1991)

> "Body Personal and Body Politic: Adornment and Leadership in Cross-Cultural Perspective," Anthropos 85(4-6): 431-445 (1990) (download)

> "Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: The Mediation of Knowledge by Traders in African Art," Visual Anthropology Review 6(1): 45-49. (1990) (download)

> African Art in Movement: Traders, Networks, and Objects in the West African Art Market. Discussion Papers in the African Humanities, no. 3. African Studies Center, Boston University. (1989) (download)

> "Of Drums and Dancers: Convention and Reality in Portrayals of Non-Western Peoples in European Accounts of Discovery and Exploration," The Harvard Review 1(1): 104-129. (1986) (download article) (hi-res images: frontispiece, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

> "Another Image of Africa: Toward an Ethnohistory of European Cloth Marketed in West Africa, 1873-1960," Ethnohistory 32(2): 91-110 (1985) (download)

Shorter Articles and Reviews

> "Tourism and Tourist Arts," pp. 472-75. In African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Philip M. Peek and Kwesi Yankah, eds. New York Routledge (2004)

> "Waiting to Inhale: The Moral Economy of African Trade." Review Essay based on
Paul Stoller, Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City. In Anthropological Quarterly 75(2): 151-162. (2002) (download)

> "Commercial Production." In The Dictionary of African Art. Herbert M. Cole, ed. London: Macmillan Reference (2002)

> "Out of the Curiosity Cabinet," Connecticut College Magazine (Winter) 34-37 (2000)

> Review of Pascal Blanchard and Armelle Chatelier, eds. Images et Colonies. In International Journal of African Historical Studies 29(3): 654-56. (1997) (download)

> "Mytho(il)logiques," African Arts 24(1): 91-93, 104 (1996) (download)

> "Textile Transformations and Cultural Continuities in West Africa," pp. 63-66. In Contact, Crossover, Continuity: Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Symposium of The Textile Society of America, Los Angeles (1995) (download)

> "Kente Cloth in Africa and America," Terra (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) 32(4): 6 (1995) (download)

> "Finis: Editor's Farewell," Museum Anthropology 20(3): 3-4 (1994) (download)

> Review of Four Inaugural Exhibitions at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, with Kathleen K. Skelly. In American
Anthropologist 95(4): 1080-1083. (1993) (download)

> "Fake Masks and Faux Modernity: The Crisis of Misrepresentation," African Arts
25(2): 18-20 (1992) (download)

> Review of Charles W. Smith, Auctions: The Social Construction of Value. In American Ethnologist 19(3): 634-635. (1992) (download)

> Review of Peabody Museum exhibition Dioramas, Models and Mannequins in Peabody Museum Exhibitions. In Museum Anthropology 15(2): 34-37 (1991) (download)

> "Akan Brass Weights," with Kathleen K. Skelly. In The Frederic Wertham Collection, pp. 91-95. Cambridge, MA: Busch-Reisinger Museum and Harvard University Press. (1990) (download)

> "The Re-Circulation of Beads from the West African Trade," Ornament 14(1): 58-61 (1990) (download)

> "Depiction of Facial Paralysis on an African Mask," with Rif S. El-Mallakh, M.D., Neurology 38(5): 822-23 (1988) (download)

> "Masks." In Britannica Junior Encyclopaedia, fourth edition, vol. 11, pp. 220-222. London: Britannica International. (1988)

> Review of J.P. Delcourt and Giovanni F. Scanzi, Potomo Waka. In African Arts 21(3): 84-85 (1988) (download)

> "To Dance the Spirit: African Masks in Motion," Chrysalis (Swedenborg Foundation)
3(1): 15-21 (1988) (download)

> Review of Werewere-Liking, Statues Colons. In African Arts 21(1): 95-96 (1988) (download)

> "Skewed Vision," Harvard Magazine (March-April): 110 (1987) (download)

> "Interpreting African Masks: The Harley Collection at the Peabody Museum," Symbols (Peabody Museum): 6-10 (1986) (download)

> Review of Peabody Museum exhibition From Site to Sight: Anthropology, Photography and the Power of Imagery. In African Arts 20(3): 81-82 (1987) (download)

> Review of From Site to Sight. In Museum Anthropology 11(2): 23-24 (1987)

> Review of Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. In Nieuwe West-Indishe Gids 58(3/4): 213-219 (1984) (download)

Videos

> In a Nutshell: A Portrait of Elizabeth Tashjian. 80 mins. A documentary film that chronicles the life of artist and curator who founded the Nut Museum. (2005). Project Advisor and "on camera" interview subject in film.

- Mimetic Media website.

> In and Out of Africa. 60 mins. Ethnographic documentary about the trade in Africa art based on African Art in Transit. Produced with Ilisa Barbash, Baare Gabai and Lucien Taylor. Center for Media and Independent Learning, University of California Extension, Berkeley (1991). Associate Producer and Project Advisor.

- Review Essay by Bill Nichols, American Anthropologist 99(4), 1997. (download)

- Review by Patricia Aufderheide, American Anthropologist
96(4), 1994 (download)

Exhibitions

2006

> Paper Work: The Art of Elizabeth Enders. Shain Library, Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut.

2004

> The Nut Museum: Visionary Art of Elizabeth Tashjian. Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut

- Exhibition review (Raw Vision, Fall 2004) (download)
- The New Yorker (April 18, 2005) article on The Nut Museum

> African Art in Connecticut Collections. Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut.

- Installation photos (download)

2003

> Evolution of the Nut: The Art of Elizabeth Tashjian at Connecticut College. Shain Library, New London, Connecticut.

- Exhibition review (Boston Globe, Jan. 4, 2004) (download)

1990

> Arts of Africa from the Hegarty Collection. Harmon Fine Arts Center, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

1986

> To Dance the Spirit: Masks of Liberia. Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

- Exhibition catalog (download)
- Exhibition brochure (download)
- Harvard University Gazette, May 9, 1986 (download)

Courses offered at Connecticut College

AHI 211     -  African Art (syllabus)

AHI 258     -  Introduction to Museum Studies (syllabus)

AHI 263     -  Debating Museums (syllabus)

AHI 356     -  Imagining Otherness in Visual Culture (syllabus)

AHI 493K  -   Authenticity in Art and Culture (syllabus)

FYS 140   -   Food in Art, Culture and Cinema (syllabus)