Meet Dr. Saskia Beranek, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History!
 |
| Dr. Saskia Beranek Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History |
1. Why did you become an art historian?
I started as a studio arts major, with an emphasis in ceramics and sculpture. About halfway through undergrad, I realized that studying the social and historical work done by images was more interesting to me than making them. Images are a powerful tool to help us understand past moments, and by extension, ourselves. That realization came about primarily through classes on Northern Renaissance art taught by my undergraduate mentor.
Plus, I was named after a painting – it may have been fate.
2. If you weren't an art history professor, what would you do for a living?
I have very elaborate plans for my hypothetical future career establishing and running the Black Market Biscotti Company.
3. Tell us a little bit about your educational background. Why did you choose the particular institutions you did?
My undergrad was at Penn State (main campus) and I ended up there by accident. I did an MA at Duke University, then took time off from academia to make sure that it was what I really wanted. Having realized that teaching was what I needed to be doing, I did my PhD at Pitt. I went to Pitt because I needed to stay close to Pittsburgh at the time, and lucked into two amazing mentors and a whole cadre of lifelong colleagues. My whole educational experience has been a case of ending up somewhere almost accidentally and making the most out of what it has to offer.
4. Where all have you lived? Which place has been your favorite?
I am a Pittsburgh native and though I keep leaving, I keep coming back, too. I passed some time in Central PA and in North Carolina, but I also lived for about two years in the Netherlands. I spent most of my time there in The Hague, which is a city that I love, but for sheer charm and rich history, my favorite may have been Utrecht, where I spent my first two months abroad.
5. What about Pittsburgh excites you? Is there something here that you're really interested in or have loved experiencing?
What’s really fun to me as someone who grew up here is seeing the local scene change! Pittsburgh has an incredibly vibrant arts community that has blossomed. When I was a kid, everyone was terrified because the city was so elderly – everyone young left. Now, there’s always something going on for all age groups. The things I’ve always loved since I was very small, like going to the Strip on a Saturday and getting good coffee and great cheese and fresh bread are still there, but now we’ve also got a blossoming restaurant culture, gallery crawls, artist lectures, performances, etc. If you’re bored in Pittsburgh, it’s your fault, not the city’s!
6. What book would you recommend that every student of art history read?
This isn’t art history specific, but rather a book that I think all students of history should read: Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. Pears was an art historian and also wrote fun art history mysteries, but Instance of the Fingerpost is a novel about a (fictional) event set in 17th century England. The book presents four different narratives about the same event. On the one hand, it’s a whodunit nestled amidst questions of faith, reason, the history of science, and more than a little backstabbing. On the other, it’s a potent reminder that every primary source is an unreliable narrator. I read it at a moment when I was utterly occupied with primary research and trying to find the “truth” in the documents. To be reminded of the subjectivity of any document was a sobering experience.
For an actual art historical text, The Art of Describing by Svetlana Alpers. Groundbreaking when it came out and controversial ever since, it is an essential read not only for students of Dtuch art history, but also for thinking about what vision is and what is at stake in image making.
7. What is your favorite book (art history-related or not)?
Hands down, it’s Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night. One of the world’s great translators of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Sayers is better known for her mystery novels. Gaudy Night is both a mystery novel and a love story. But the love story isn’t just about the two main characters (a sleuth and a novelist). It’s actually a love story about academia.
8. What is your favorite movie?
High on my list of favorites is 84 Charing Cross Road, a movie about a used bookstore. Also on the list are the French films My Father’s Glory and The Music Teacher. I also really love Stranger than Fiction.
9. What is your favorite historical period or moment?
My actual favorite historical event is the Great Tulip Crash of 1637. The Dutch had become obsessed with tulips, which are in origin a Himalayan wild flower highly prized in eastern courts. The Dutch were already movers and shakers in the history of science and botany and everyone loved the new flowers. There was an extensive futures market and people were spending their entire fortune to buy the chance to get tulip bulbs. In 1637, the bottom fell out of the market and the whole economy almost collapsed. Smart legislation on the part of the government prevented abject crisis. I think I am drawn to the whimsical, and though economic collapse is deadly serious and the resulting economic policies significant, the fact that it was brought about by flowers makes me giggle.
10. What historical event have you experienced so far that has had the most profound impact on you, and why?
It’s not so much an event as a place. The first time I went to Berlin was recently – maybe five years ago. I was fascinated by the way the city is, and sometimes isn’t, “healing” around where the Berlin Wall had stood. I study architecture as well as art, so the choices being made about space in the wake of the fall of the Wall speak both to memory and to renewal –both past and present. Until then, to me, the fall of the Wall was something that happened a long time ago and very far away when it was really something that happened in my lifetime that radically altered the course of the world. Going to Berlin made me realize that history wasn’t someone else’s story, it was mine, too.
11. Tell us a little-known-fact about you.
I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer and also taught ballroom dance for about six years during and after college. I still dance weekly, but not ballroom, as I’ve branched out into other styles.
12. If you could create a course to teach--about anything--what would it be?
I’ve got a list! I want to teach a course on Golden Age Dutch art (Rembrandt and Vermeer), a course on the northern renaissance, a course on Forgeries, Fakes, and Frauds, but mostly, I would love to teach a course on Iconoclasm and Censorship. In the case of iconoclasm, there are all these instances of people who have intense relationships with art objects that turn violent. Why? What makes people turn from worshiping to destroying an object, and what does that mean about the power of visual culture? Censorship is similar: if you censor an image, it can be argued that you aren’t actually reducing its power but instead affirming and reinforcing it. Why are these images so powerful, and how do historic and contemporary cases of destruction and censorship speak more broadly to issues of artist creation, visuality, and the role images play in our lives?