The Artist and Academia explores the relationship between artistic and academic ways of knowing. Historically, these have often been presented as opposites; the former characterized as passionate and intuitive and the latter portrayed as systematic and rigorous. Recent scholarship presents a more complex picture. Artistic knowledge demands high levels of skill and rigor, while academic research requires creativity and innovative thinking. This edited collection brings together leading artists and scholars (as well as artist-scholars) to offer a variety of philosophical, educational, experiential, reflexive and imaginative perspectives on the artist and academia. The contributions include in-depth, scholarly discussions on the nature of knowledge and creativity, as well as personal artistic statements from musicians, dancers, actors and writers. Additionally, it explores both the mediational and subversive spaces created by the meeting of artistic and academic traditions. While the book addresses global themes by global writers, its core case study is an educational experiment called the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick in Ireland. Established in 1994, it set out to reconfigure the place of the artist in the context of contemporary higher education. The material is clustered into three parts. Part One and Part Two explore the artist as mediator, educator and subversive in academia. Grounded in close-to-practice research, Part Three concludes the volume with a set of case studies from the Irish World Academy. Artistic and academic knowledge come together in this unique set of pieces to explore the development of more inclusive and imaginative pedagogical values.

"Academics, Artists, and Museums examines twenty-first century partnerships between the museum and higher education sectors, with a focus on art museums and exhibits"--

A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, this memoir of one woman's later in life career change is “a smart, funny and compelling case for going after your heart's desires, no matter your age” (Essence). Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school––in her sixties––to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, even as she comes to understand how they may be undervalued; and struggles with the unstable balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful demands of a life fully lived. How are women and artists seen and judged by their age, looks, and race? What does it mean when someone says, “You will never be an artist”? Who defines what an artist is and all that goes with such an identity, and how are these ideas tied to our shared conceptions of beauty, value, and difference? Bringing to bear incisive insights from two careers, Painter weaves a frank, funny, and often surprising tale of her move from academia to art in this "glorious achievement––bighearted and critical, insightful and entertaining. This book is a cup of courage for everyone who wants to change their lives" (Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage).

"Few sites within the university open a richer critical reflection than that of the M.F.A., with its complex crossing of professionalism, theory, humanistic knowledge, and the absolute exposure of practice. Howard Singerman's Art Subjects does a magnificent job of both laying out our current crises, letting us see the shards of past practices embedded in them, and of demonstrating—rendering urgent and discussable—what it now means either to assume or award the name of the artist."—Stephen Melville, author of Seams, editor of Vision and Textuality "Art Subjects is a must read for anyone interested in both the education and status of the visual artist in America. With careful attention to detail and nuance, Singerman presents a compelling picture of the peculiarly institutional myth of the creative artist as an untaught and unteachable being singularly well adapted to earn a tenure position at a major research university. A fascinating study, thoroughly researched yet oddly, and movingly, personal."—Thomas Lawson, Dean, Art School, CalArts

This book focuses on the relationship between the university and a particular cohort of academic staff: those in visual and performing arts disciplines who joined the university sector in the 1990s. It explores how artistic researchers have been accommodated in the Australian university management framework and the impact that this has had on their careers, identities, approaches to their practice and the final works that they produce. The book provides the first analysis of this topic across the artistic disciplinary domain in Australia and updates the findings of Australia’s only comprehensive study of the position of research in the creative arts within the government funding policy setting reported in 1998 (The Strand Report). Using lived examples and a forensic approach to the research policy challenges, it shows that while limited progress has been made in the acceptance of artistic research as legitimate research, significant structural, cultural and practical challenges continue to undermine relationships between universities and their artistic staff and affect the nature and quality of artistic work.

What is our Role?: Artists in Academia and the Post-Knowledge Economy brings to the page a selection of inspired negotiations of the role of the artist in academia by four artist-scholars.

He also addresses the phenomenon of art critiques as a microcosm for teaching art as a whole and dissects real-life critiques, highlighting presuppositions and dynamics that make them confusing and suggesting ways to make them more helpful. Elkins's no-nonsense approach clears away the assumptions about art instruction that are not borne out by classroom practice. For example, he notes that despite much talk about instilling visual acuity and teaching technique, in practice neither teachers nor students behave as if those were their principal goals. He addresses the absurdity of pretending that sexual issues are absent from life-drawing classes and questions the practice of holding up great masters and masterpieces as models for students capable of producing only mediocre art. He also discusses types of art--including art that takes time to complete and art that isn't serious--that cannot be learned in studio art classes.