Dr. Anne Heath, associate professor of art and art history at Hope College, is one of only 28 college and university faculty nationwide chosen by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) to participate in the seminar “The Creation of the Modern American City: Chicago from 1830 to 1910.”
Co-sponsored by the CIC and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the seminar will be held on Monday-Friday, June 16-20, at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. The seminar will be employing a chronological and topical approach to explore major developments in Chicago’s formative period, when it evolved from a tiny frontier outpost to the nation’s second city and emblem of urban modernity, for better and for worse. It is designed for full-time faculty members in history and related fields.
Heath’s interest in the seminar builds on her study of aspects of urban development in earlier eras. Her area of specialization is Gothic architecture and urbanism of the late Middle Ages. Her publications have focused on the medieval city of Auxerre, France, with particular emphasis on the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Germain d’Auxerre. She is currently writing a book on how Benedictine abbeys adapted to and participated in the urbanization of in the 13th and 14th centuries.
“I am eager to participate in the CIC Chicago seminar because the methods that scholars employ to study the rapid and dramatic transformation of Chicago into a world-class city can inform and enliven my own methods for studying urban transformations at the end of the Middle Ages,” Heath said. “It is so important to be a part of scholarly communities such as CIC seminars because one can learn from and be energized by the conversations that take place among scholars from different disciples but with similar research interests.”
Heath has been a member of the Hope faculty since 2007. She teaches “Introduction to Art History”; courses in the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods; and upper-level seminars on topics such as “Art Theory before the Modern Age,” “Medieval Narrative,” and the “History of the Book.” She has taught seminars in which students curate exhibitions for the gallery of the De Pree Art Center, such as “Reading between the Lines: the History and Production of Books Highlighted by the Hope College Rare Book Collection.” All of her classes stress first-hand experience with works of art, through fieldtrips, object-specific projects, and hands-on training. Heath is active with the college’s Mellon Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities, teaching IDS 180, the “Sophomore Research Seminar.”
Heath received her B.A. with honors in art history and German from the University of Maine. She spent her junior year as a full-time student at the Universität Salzburg, Austria. She received her master’s degree from Florida State University and her Ph.D. from Brown University. During her graduate studies, Heath worked on archaeological excavations in Italy and France.