Elizabeth Mann

PhD Student

Magic Realism, Identity, and Belonging in Mid-Century America

Supervised by Professor David Peters Corbett and Dr Indie A. Choudhury

My research addresses questions at the nexus of visual culture and identity in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In my dissertation, I examine the group of American magic realists working in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. I investigate the intersecting identities, constraints, and privileges that shaped their artistic production and reception. I ask: How did the magic realists engage with American history and visual culture? To what extent did they conform to, or resist, dominant social norms? And how did these dynamics relate to their senses of belonging (or lack thereof) within the United States?

Education

  • MA, History of Art, 麻豆视频
  • BA, History and Literature, Harvard College

Experience

  • Postgraduate Research Associate, Yale Center for British Art
  • Associate Cataloguer, Sotheby’s
  • Humanities Fellow, Dumbarton Oaks & National Gallery of Art
  • Curatorial Intern, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Student Guide, Harvard Art Museums

Grants & Awards

  • Short-Term Fellowship, The Huntington

Papers & Talks

  • “America, a Prophecy,” Beyond Britain Talk, Yale Center for British Art (November 2025)
  • 鈥淎pparatus of Empire: 19th-Century British Photography in India,鈥 Postgraduate Symposium, Yale University (August 2025)
  • 鈥淏etween the Lines: Fidelma Cadmus Kirstein鈥檚 Quiet Defiance,鈥 Deviant Women Symposium, Bristol University (July 2025)

Research Interests

  • American art, 1850-1950
  • Global modernism
  • Gender and sexuality
  • Women artists
  • Museum studies

Citations