The Master's Degree in Jewish Art and Material Culture at the Graduate School, Jewish Theological Seminary, is designed to meet the need for professional personnel in the burgeoning field of Jewish art. Specifically, the program has the following aims:
- To provide specialized training in the field of Jewish art for those wishing to serve as curators in Jewish museums or in secular museums with Judaica collections, to teach, or to continue studying Jewish art and culture for the doctoral degree.
- To enable students in other fields of art history or in the history and culture of the Jewish people to acquire familiarity with Jewish art.
The program combines advanced courses in Jewish art and material culture with courses in Jewish studies and in general art history at nearby universities. Students pursue museum internships at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, with its peerless collection of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books, and at The Jewish Museum.
The Faculty
The program advisor is Dr. Vivian Mann, whose areas of specialization include Jewish art, Islamic art and western medieval art. Dr. Mann was the Morris and Eva Feld Chair in Judaica at The Jewish Museum. She has created numerous exhibitions and their catalogues, among them Gardens & Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy; Convivencia: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Spain; and most recently Morocco: Jews & Art in a Muslim Land. In 2000, her Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts was published by Cambridge University Press, and her newest work, Art & Ceremony in Jewish Life, was published by Pindar Press in 2005.
Visiting Professors and Instructors include Susan Chevlowe (The Museum of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale), Susan Braunstein, Andrew Ingall, Mason Klein and Stephen Brown (The Jewish Museum), Barbara Boehm (Metropolitan Musuem of Art), Ellen Kastel and Sharon Lieberman Mintz (The Jewish Theological Seminary). Their fields range from medieval art to modern and contemporary art, to archival research and media studies.
For more information, about the Jewish Art and Visual Culture program contact The Jewish Theological Seminary at www.jtsa.edu
