New Faculty: Nancy P. Lin

Nancy P. Lin

Assistant Professor, History of Art and Visual Studies

Academic focus: 

Modern and contemporary art from China and its diasporas, architecture and urbanism, performance art

Current research project: 

My first book project, “Art On-Site: Situating Global Contemporaneity in 1990s China,” explores the aesthetic and socio-political stakes for how and why artists during this period began to work “on-site” in everyday urban spaces such as city streets, construction sites and other unconventional locations.

Previous position:

• Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University, 2021-2024

Academic background:

• Ph.D., Department of Art History, The University of Chicago, 2021
• M.A., Department of Art History, The University of Chicago, 2017
• B.A., Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, 2011

Last book read:

How about the last exhibition seen instead? “Shanshui: Echoes and Signals” at M+ Museum, Hong Kong

In your own time/when not working:

I enjoy sketching and watercolor painting, swimming and cycling with the Finger Lakes Cycling Club. In the wintertime I like to downhill ski and ice skate.

Courses you’re most looking forward to teaching:

I look forward to introducing art history and its methods to undergraduate students in my fall semester course Art Histories: An Introduction, which will focus on the theme of materiality across different periods and cultures.

What most excites you about Cornell:

I’m excited to build interdisciplinary connections with the many students and faculty at Cornell working at the intersection of Asian studies and global modern and contemporary arts and culture, and I especially look forward to continuing my collaborations with the Johnson Museum of Art.