Prof Kathleen James-Chakraborty

  • Leader, Mentor, Pioneer
  • Academic, Cultural, Social

 

Prof Kathleen James-Chakraborty

Full Professor

UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy

Kathleen is a Full Professor in UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy. A historian of modern architecture, especially in Germany, South Asia, and the United States, she is currently engaged in studying ways in which to conserve postwar curtain wall buildings while making them more sustainable (research funded by an Irish Research Council Coalesce grant) and in examining the role that gender and race played in the global dissemination of modern architecture and design between 1920 and 1970.  

The latter scholarship, funded by the highly prestigious Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), is an extension of her longstanding interest in writing global histories that highlight the contributions of women and her previous scholarship on memory. Kathleen was the first woman to receive a gold medal from the Royal Irish Academy.

I am inspired everyday by the quality of the contribution that women architects trained at UCD have made to the built environment around the world.  We need to ensure that architecture and every other profession and field of work gives all women the opportunity to achieve so much.

Kathleen's ERC project 'Expanding Agency: Women, Race and the Global Dissemination of Modern Architecture' explores four ways in which women and ethnic minorities had an impact upon the global dissemination of modern architecture and design.  These include journalism, patronage, entrepreneurship, and institution building. The project, in collaboration with the UCD Humanities Institute, will demonstrate the impact, largely unacknowledged, that women, African Americans, and other overlooked groups had and to explore their motivation, which often included, but was seldom limited to, the necessity to earn a living. 
Learn more about 'Expanding Agency'.