James Cartwright, MA Class of 鈥17, Teaches and Explores Cross-Cultural Art
Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Portrait of Art History alumnus, James Cartwright. Photo by Alexandria Salmieri.
Why are people driven to make art? This is the question that sparked and continues to fuel James Cartwright鈥檚 passion for art history. He wants to know what makes people express themselves through art.
James explores the reasons behind art-making with his students at USF. He earned his MA in Art History from the 黑料老司机 in December 2017, and was hired immediately after by the School of Art & Art History as adjunct faculty. Teaching feels natural to James. When he was a graduate teaching assistant, he was entrusted to lead a class on his own once a week. Through what he considers his first real challenge as a graduate student, he discovered that he loves helping his students to develop a curiosity for art. He teaches History of Visual Arts I and II this summer, and in the spring semester he taught 19th Century Art.
James received his Bachelor of Arts in Art History from USF as well. He went abroad for the first time when he joined classmates and faculty on the school鈥檚 well-known Paris Summer Art Program. He was amazed to see famous works of art in person. Yet there was even more to experience. 鈥淢y favorite memory from the Paris program is the nine-mile hike outside the city in the French countryside. You get to walk through a ruined abbey and all of these other structures that make you feel like you're wandering through some fantasy landscape, or someplace forgotten by time. The hike is a nice challenge, but there is also a peaceful, serene quality to the trip,鈥 he shares.
Always drawn to other cultures and perspectives, James found that what the USF Art History program had to offer was right up his alley. A number of the highly regarded art history faculty at USF specialize in non-western art. He was inspired by Dr. Esra Ak谋n-K谋van莽鈥檚 classes on Islamic art and architecture. Her teachings opened his eyes to a new realm of art history and tied into his interest in cross-cultural art, which is now his specialty. He explains that studying cross-cultural art affords him more flexibility: 鈥淚 have a greater range of cultures and time periods I can research. For example, I can write about something like European collectors of East Asian art, then Christian and Muslim artists working together to decorate a cathedral, then Hungarian noblemen visiting the Ottoman Empire, and so on. I have a lot of freedom to explore different types of artwork, and different dynamics between multiple cultures.鈥
For his Master鈥檚 Qualifying Paper, James investigated and wrote about the hybrid artwork created by Muslims and Christians living in the same cities. Working on the final paper challenged him to think