Resume/Curriculum Vitae

CURRICULUM VITAE

PREMINDA JACOB
e-mail: PSJacob@cris.com
Phone: (410) 455- 3716 (work)

Preminda Jacob is Assistant Professor of Art History and Theory in the Department of Visual Arts at UMBC. She joined the faculty at UMBC in 1995 to teach surveys of nineteenth and twentieth century art and seminars on the subjects of race and ethnicity in contemporary art, the politics of popular art and mass media culture, and the history, theory and practice of the art museum. The latter seminar is taught in collaboration with Symmes Gardner of the UMBC Fine Arts Gallery. Dr. Jacob is a recipient of a 1999-2000 J.Paul Getty Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities and, consequently, is on a leave of absence for the current academic year. She was educated in India and the U.S.A. receiving her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1994. She is working on a project titled, "Celluloid Deities: The Nexus of Visual Art, Media, Politics in South India" which will comprise a book and an accompanying CD-ROM. She began work on this topic in 1989 and has received a total of 6 grants thus far to support her research. This includes a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship that she received in 1997 from the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University. She has published three articles from her research and is collaborating with a team of digital artists, headed by Colin Ives, Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at UMBC, to produce a CD-ROM on this topic. In addition she is working towards curating an exhibition on the subject of South Asian cinema culture at the UMBC Fine Arts Gallery.

1997 - Assistant Professor, Art History & Theory, Department of Visual Arts, University of Maryland Baltimore County.

1997 - Rockefeller Fellow, Center for Media, Culture and History, New York University . (January through May).

1995-1996 - Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts, University of Maryland Baltimore County.

1994 - Internship - Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Asian Art), Washington DC (October 1994 - December 1994)

ACADEMIC TRAINING

Ph.D. Art History - Dec. 1994
University of California, Los Angeles
Major: Contemporary (Third World) Art
Minors: African Art, Colonial Discourse Theory
Dissertation title: "Film and Political Advertisements of South India: Urban Spectacle, Popular Culture, Third World Industry."

M.A. Art History - May 1988
State University of New York, Binghamton
Major: Popular Public Arts
Minor: Vernacular Architecture
Thesis title: "Micro Landscapes in Suburbia."

M.A. Art Criticism - December 1981
Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Baroda, India
Major: Contemporary Indian Art
Thesis title: "The Contemporary Art Scene in South India."

B.A. Fine Arts and Art History - September 1979
Stella Maris College, Madras, India

PUBLICATIONS

Articles:

2000 - — "Negotiating New Systems of Perception. Darshan, Diegesis and Beyond." Co-authored with Margot Lovejoy. Proceedings: Consciousness Reframed. Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era. Center for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts. University of Wales College, Newport, United Kingdom. (Forthcoming 2000)
1999 - "Between Modernism and Modernization. Locating Modernity in South Asian Art." In Art Journal. Special Issue on "Contemporary South Asian Art." Guest editors: Marcella Sirhandi and Andrew Cohen. (Fall 1999)
1998 - "Media Spectacles: The Production and Reception of Tamil Film Advertisements." In Visual Anthropology. Vol. 11 (4): 287-322. Special Issue -"All Singing, All Talking, All Dancing. Perspectives on Cinema and Society in India." Guest edited by Preminda Jacob.
1998 - "Introduction." In Visual Anthropology. Vol. 11 (4): 281-286. Special Issue -"All Singing, All Talking, All Dancing. Perspectives on Cinema and Society in India." Guest edited by Preminda Jacob.
1997 - "Re-Visioning Visual Culture in a Postcolonial Context. An Analysis of Cinematic Imagery in the Urban Public Space in India." In Proceedings: American Photography Institute. National Graduate Seminar. Edited by Cheryl Younger. New York: American Photography Institute, Photography Dept., Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. pp 139-143.
1997 - "From Co-Star to Deity. Popular Representations of Jayalalitha Jayaram" In Representing the Body. Gender Issues in Indian Art edited by Vidya Dehejia. Pp. 141-165. New Delhi: Kali for Women Press.
1997 - "From Co-Star to Deity." (Edited version of the same article) Reprinted in Women. A Cultural Review. Special Issue - Independent India. 8(3):Autumn : 327-337.
1992 - "A Dialectic of Personal and Communal Aesthetics: Yard Ornamentation in Northeastern America" The Journal of Popular Culture 26, 3 (Winter): 91-105.
"When the Outside Comes In." Inside Outside [Architectural Magazine] Bombay (April-May 1984): 21-24.

Interviews:

1990 - "Sticking It To Them: Conversations with Robbie Conal" Strategies. A Journal of Theory, Culture and Politics, Special Issue: In the City 3 (Fall): 243-259.
1989 - Participated with 7 others to interview Homi K.Bhabha. The interview was published as an article, "Location, Intervention, Incommensurability" in Emergences. Group for the Study of Composite Cultures 1 (Fall): 63-88.

Edited Text:

Baskets (editor) New Delhi: Crafts Council of India and Office of the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Commerce, 1987.

Book Review:

Book review of The Word and the World: Fantasy, Symbol, Record. Contributions to Indian Sociology edited by Veena Das. Published in Journal of Ritual Studies, 3/1 (Winter 1989): 143-144.

Press Releases:

"The Pen His Brush." Indian Express. Madras (15 December 1984):14. (An interview with a British art critic, William Feaver).
"Filming the Love Law of South India." Indian Express. Madras (7 December 1984):14. (A report on a BBC film crew working in Madras).
"Patterns that are Precious." Indian Express. Madras (25 August 1984):14. (An interview with an American artist, Schroeder Cherry).

GRANTS

1999 - $35,000. J.Paul Getty Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities.
1998 - $2500. Designated Research Initiative Fund. University of Maryland Baltimore County.
1998 - $ 4000. Summer Faculty Fellowship. University of Maryland Baltimore County.
1997 - $ 16,500. Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship to work at the Center for Media, Culture and History, New York University. Project title: "Celluloid Deities: Popular Film and Political Advertisements in South India."
1992 - $12,000. The Edward A. Dickson History of Art Fellowship towards completing the doctoral dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles.
1989 - $11,000. The Edward A. Dickson Travel Grant. To conduct dissertation research in Madras, India.
1987 - $14,790. The Edward A. Dickson History of Art Fellowship for entering graduate students.
1987 - $565.00. The Research Opportunity Fund. Intercampus Exchange Program. University of California, Los Angeles.

PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

1999 - (March 20 and April 30) "Introduction to Deepa Mehta's film Fire". Public Program schedule: at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC; and the Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
1999 — (February 12) Co-chaired with Barbara Abrash, NYU, a panel titled "Dissolves and Jump-Cuts. Representations of Race in Contemporary Film and Video." College Art Association Conference. Los Angeles
1998 - (September 23) "Mapping Time: Perspectives on Bill Tudor’s installation ‘An Essay in Color: Fells Point’". Faculty panel on ‘Excursions in Time’ sponsored by the Humanities Forum, UMBC, Baltimore.
1998 - (August 20) "Negotiating New Systems of Perception. Darshan, Diegesis and Beyond." Consciousness Reframed. Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era conference at the Center for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts. University of Wales College, Newport, United Kingdom. This was a joint presentation with Margot Lovejoy, SUNY Purchase.
1998 - (February 26) "Between Modernism and Modernization: Locating Modernity in Indian Art." College Art Association Conference. Toronto, Canada.
1998 - (January 25) "Celluloid Deities: Cinema Stars, Political Celebrity and Advertising in South India." Queens Museum of Art. New York .
1997- (June 6): "Re-Visioning Visual Culture in a Postcolonial Context. An Analysis of Cinematic Imagery in the Urban Public Space in India. American Photography Institute, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
1997 - (April 18): "Celluloid Deities: Cinema Stars, Political Celebrity and Advertising in South India." Center for Media, Culture and History, New York University
(April 16) (same paper) Department of Art, State University of New York, Purchase.
1996 - (October 19) "The Deadly Fuse: Entwining Cinema, History and Politics in an Urban Public Sphere." 25th. Annual Conference on South Asia, Center for South Asia. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1996 - (September 15) "Introduction to Satyajit Ray's film Devi". Public Program schedule. Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
1996 - (April 18-21) "Mimicry as Subversion in Indian Art of the Colonial Period." 'Transnationalism, Nationalism & Cultural Identity' Conference of the American Ethnological Society, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1995 - (April 23) Discussant -"Representations in Contemporary African Art." Tenth Triennial Symposium on African Art, New York.
1990 - (March 3) "Micro-Landscapes in Suburbia: Lawn and Yard Decoration in North-East America." Art History Graduate Student Symposium, University of Arizona, Tucson.
1987 - (April 11) "A Critique of Panofsky's, `Excursus on Two Facade Designs by Domenico Beccafumi'." A Symposium on the History of Art. Presented by The Frick Collection and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.
(March 13) (same paper) Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, Binghamton University.

EXPERIENCE

Teaching:

Assistant Professor, August 1997 to present.

Courses

Surveys:

Nineteenth Century Art
Twentieth Century Art

Seminars:

Contemporary Art, Theory & Criticism
Theory and Practice of the Art Museum
Politics of Popular Art and Mass Media Culture
Representations of Race and Ethnicity in Contemporary Art

Visiting Assistant Professor, August 1995 - December 1996

Teaching Assistant, October 1988 - June 1989

Teaching Assistant, September 1985 - May 1987

Guide-Lecturer, January 1985 - June 1985

Part Time Lecturer in Art Appreciation, June 1982 - April 1983

Lecturer in Art History and Painting, January 1982 - April 1982

Other:

Research Fellow, January 1997 - May 1997

Advisor, May 1996 - April 1997; and May 1998 — April 1999

Intern, October 1994 - December 1994

Guide Lecturer; January - June 1985

Gallery Manager, February - December 1984

Kala Yatra

LANGUAGES

Spoken: Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam.
Read: Hindi, Tamil, French.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Member of the College Art Association of Artists and Art Historians.

COURSES ATTENDED

June 17 - July 22 1986. International Summer Institute of Semiotic and Structural Studies. Northwestern University.

REFERENCES

Dr. Kathy O'Dell, Dept. of Visual Arts, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250 (410) 455-3536. E-mail: o’dell@umbc.edu

Margot Lovejoy, Dept. of Art, State University of New York, Purchase.

Dr. Donald Preziosi, Dept. of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90024 (310) 206-8981.

Dr. Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Dept. of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 (619) 534-4790

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