Mary Trent

Assistant Professor

Education

Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, Visual Studies

M.A., University of California, Irvine, Visual Studies

A.B., University of Chicago, Art History

Research Interests

Mary Trent is a specialist in American and African American Art and Visual Culture. She teaches courses in American Art, African American Art, and the History of Photography.  Her research focuses on issues of identity in visual culture, including ways marginalized figures have used art and media to critique dominant visual norms and better visualize their own experiences. She has a special interest in how individuals from diverse backgrounds have used domestic, vernacular album-making practices to gain agency in the visualization of themselves and their worlds.

Courses Taught

Publications

“‘An Album is a Garden Spot:’ Visualizing Freedom in the Family Photographs of the Formerly-Enslaved Ellen Craft.” American Art 37, no. 1 (Spring 2023).

Diverse Voices in Photographic Albums: “These Are Our Stories.” Edited with Kris Belden-Adams. London: Routledge, 2022.

“Historical Memory in Contemporary African American Activist Photography.” In The Routledge Companion to Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Mey-Yen Moriuchi and Lesley Shipley. London: Routledge, 2022.

“Henry Darger and the Unruly Paper Dollhouse Scrapbook.” In Phallacies: Historical Intersections of Disability and Masculinity, edited by Kathleen M. Brian and James W. Trent, Jr., 44-64. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

“‘Many Stirring Scenes’: Henry Darger’s Reworking of American Visual Culture.” American Art 26, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 74-101.