Mary Trent

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My research considers issues of gender in twentieth-century American art and visual culture. Most recently, I have looked at the subject of girlhood in collage and assemblage projects made by Joseph Cornell and Henry Darger during the 1930s-1960s. I argue that the two artists created elaborate worlds filled with references to girls and girlish domestic crafts to celebrate the individual imagination in a mass-mediated culture. I bring my research interests into my teaching by asking my students to consider questions of gender, race, sexuality, class, and power in art and mass media representations. I believe that interaction is a crucial component of learning and incorporate regular and active discussion, debate, and writing activities.

Education:
Ph.D. Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
M.A. Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
A.B. Art History, University of Chicago

UW-Parkside Classes:
Ancient and Medieval Art, Renaissance to Modern Art, Modern Art, From Pop Art to Now.

Publications
"'Many Stirring Scenes': Henry Darger's Engagement with American Mass Print Media.” American Art.  and “Henry Darger.” Re:Chicago. Chicago, IL: DePaul University Art Museum, 2011.

“Embracing the Mother as Muse: On Mavor’s Reading Boyishly.” Review of Reading Boyishly: Roland Barthes, J. M. Barrie, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Marcel Proust, and D. W. Winnicott, Carol Mavor. Discourse 32.2 (2010).

“1959: A Snapshot of Mid-Century Culture,” with Anna Brouwer. In Elizabeth Armstrong, ed. Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Mid-Century. Newport Beach, CA: Orange County Museum of Art, 2008.

“Melissa Alderete.” In Supersonic. Pasadena, CA: Art Center College of Design, 2004.

Presentations

Henry Darger and the Unruly Scrapbook Home, November 6, 2010. Lecture at the Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art, Chicago, Illinois.

“Missing Girls” in the Art of Henry Darger, July 12, 2009. Society for the History of Children and Youth, Berkeley, CA

Innocence Reproduced: Children and Mass Media in the Art of Joseph Cornell and Henry Darger, April 14, 2007. An Interdisciplinary Odyssey: Art History in the 21st Century, University of Kansas, Lawrence

Trends in American Contemporary Art: Issues of Identity, High and Low Culture and Digital Technology, May 1, 2006. Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California

Absent-Presences in the Work of Henry Darger, March 5, 2005. HOME: A Visual Studies Conference, University of California, Irvine

Henry Darger’s Artistic Repurposing of the “Waste Products of Humanity,” October 22, 2012, American Studies Association, Baltimore, MD.