Guest Speakers

BERNARD L. HERMAN

Panelist
Art Historian ~ Newark, Delaware, USA

Bernard Herman is Edward F. and Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg Professor of Art History and Director of the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware.  He teaches courses in material culture, vernacular architecture, folk and ethnic arts, historic preservation, and writing.  His books include Town House: Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City, 1780-1830, Everyday Architecture of The Mid-Atlantic, with Gabrielle M. Lanier, The Stolen House, A Land and Life Remembered: Americo-Liberian Folk Architecture with Svend Holsoe and Max Belcher, and Architecture and Rural Life in Central Delaware, 1700-1900. He has written on the art of Thornton Dial, Charles Benefield, and Martin Ramirez. His essay on the architecture of a community of Alabama African-American quilts will appear in Housetops and Bricklayers: The Architecture of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend. In 2005 he worked with twelve students in a senior writing seminar, compiling, designing, and producing People Were Close, an oral and photographic history of Newark, Delaware’s historic African-American community.

Currently Dr. Herman is developing a collection of essays on the critical relationships between objects, images, and narratives with a particular emphasis on contemporary quilts. He also serves on a number of editorial boards including Winterthur Portfolio, Journal of Modern Craft, and Material Culture Review. Dr. Herman is also a Senior Research Fellow in the University's Center for Historic Architecture and Design, an interdisciplinary research center supporting public service and student research in historic preservation. Professor Herman, who also serves on the faculty of the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, Department of History, and the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, strives to integrate teaching, research, and public service in the study, interpretation, and preservation of traditional arts and architecture.