Shana Klein

Shana Klein is an art historian trained in the history of American art, with sub-specialties in African-American and Native-American art.  Professor Klein teaches courses on American painting, photography, and visual and material culture through the lens of race and social politics.  She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of New Mexico, where she completed the dissertation—and now book project—“The Fruits of Empire: Contextualizing Food in Post-Civil War American Art and Culture.”  This project probes how the representation and cultivation of food participated in the broader cultivation of American empire.  Klein has been awarded several fellowships for her research at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, United States Capitol Building, Huntington Library, Henry Luce Foundation, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, among others.  She has published research in journals such as American Art, Public Art Dialogue, and Southern Cultures.  In recent years, Klein has served as a member of the Chesapeake Food Studies Workshop and Managing Editor of the journal, Food, Media, and Culture.  Klein’s research interests include: American visual and material culture, food studies, race and post-colonial studies, and art and social justice.