During the spring of 2017, French historian Anne Lafont will be the Institute for the Humanities 2017 Norman Freeling Visiting Fellow. An historian of the art and visual cultures of the modern world, her work focuses on art in an eighteenth-century imperial context and on arts historiography in the contemporary era.

Beginning in mid-March, Lafont will spend a month in Ann Arbor engaging with students and the larger community. Lafont's public events include a lecture at History of Art, a lecture at Afroamerican and African Studies, and a round-table discussion with professors Jean Hebrard and Meg Sweeney at the Insitute for the Humanities. She also has several engagements with undergraduate and graduate students, and will participate in the institute’s fellows seminar.

About Anne Lafont
Anne Lafont is associate professor in art history at the University of East Paris/Marne-la-Vallée. In 2007 she joined the French National Institute of Art History (INHA). There, she was engaged for five years in historiographical research programs (art and science; art and nationalism; gender studies and art discourses) before becoming editor-in-chief of the INHA review Perspective. Lafont is the author of a monograph on the french painter Girodet (Paris: Adam Biro, 2005). She has edited Plumes et pinceaux. Discours de femmes sur l’art en Europe 1750-1850, 2 vols (Paris: Presses du Réel, 2012) and she just completed a book on Art and Race in the Age of Enlightenment after having published numerous articles on this topic.

Public Events

"The Agency of Color: Art and Race in Eighteenth Century"
March 22, 4:00-6:00 PM, History of Art lecture, 180 Tappan Hall

"Through Revolutionary Lenses: African Hero in the Atlantic World of Enlightenment"
March 24, 2-4pm. Afroamerican and African Studies lecture, 4701 Haven Hall 4701

Fictions of Fabrics: Art, Literature, Design
Panel discussion with Anne Lafont, Megan Sweeney, and Courtney Wilder, with an introduction by Martha Jones and comments by Jean Hebrard, Katie Lennard, and Susan Siegfried
April 4, 12:30-2:00pm, Institute for the Humanities, 202 S. Thayer