Professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty

Role/Department:
Professor of Art History and Head of School, UCD School of Art History & Cultural Policy

Qualifications:
MA, PhD, (University of Pennsylvania)

“I started at UCD in January 2007, having been Professor of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley for 14 years. My work focuses on the history of 20th Century architecture. I trained as an art historian and UCD has a tradition of having architectural historians as professors, and of being strong in architectural history. That was appealing to me.

“It is a great time to come to UCD because with so many changes going on, there is a great opportunity to implement fresh ideas. One of the big issues we face is that Irish art is under-appreciated abroad. We want to draw attention to Irish art and bring it into the mainstream.

“One idea is to bring a series of international scholars over here to teach for a week and to talk about works of art that are here in Ireland. This would be a very exciting concept and would introduce the quality of what we do to some of the top scholars in the field.

“There are eight full-time staff in the department. We run two taught Masters programmes: Cultural Policy, which gives students the know-how to run arts institutions, and Art History. We have a small number of doctoral students and currently one post-doc. Currently all of these are on the Art History side but we’ll be extending the doctoral programme to Cultural Policy next year.

“Research is a very important part of what we do here. One of the projects we currently have underway is called the Strickland Project. This involves compiling a new edition of the Strickland Dictionary of Irish Artists, which was published in 1913 and remains the standard reference on Irish artists. The work, which will be published in four volumes, is being compiled jointly by art historians at UCD and Trinity.

“Other members of staff are working on monographs on the Dublin house, Rembrandt’s studio and death as a theme in renaissance and baroque art, while I’m writing a book on architect Louis Kahn.

“There are some large collaborative research projects but, equally important, is the opportunity to provide single scholars, including doctoral students, with the tools to do very innovative and individual research.

“As a place to do research, I find UCD very encouraging and supportive. There is also a refreshing openness to change and a collegiality here. There are few levels of bureaucracy, which keeps communication channels much more open – and I like that.”