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 Stuart Patterson

Stuart Patterson, Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts

Patterson joined the Shimer faculty in 2004.  He has taught core courses in all areas of the curriculum including the Humanities, Social

Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Integrative Studies. Patterson also teaches electives in studio art, administers a series of lectures and presentations by practicing artists and art historians, and is Shimer’s liaison to the arts community in Chicago and its environs.  His research centers on utopian thought and practice in the U.S., in particular the New Deal era and contemporary community museums. He has taught in the Academic Studies Program at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. Patterson currently heads a two-year collaboration between Shimer and the Waukegan community to complete a 600 square foot mural on the Waukegan Public Library with the theme “The Art of the Story.”

“I am constantly on my intellectual and interpersonal toes at Shimer, such is our combination of intimacy and opportunity in our academic and social life. And being especially involved in visual arts means getting to know how wildly creative most of our students are.”—Stuart Patterson

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University, Atlanta, GA., 2006
B.A., Liberal Arts (cum laude), St. John's College, Santa Fe, NM, 1992

RECENT ELECTIVES AND TUTORIALS TAUGHT

Murals

Space and Place

Adam Smith and the Market Society


AREAS OF INTEREST/SPECIALIZATION

New Deal era social history and cultural and social programs of the federal government; history of utopian thought and practice in North America; history of museums and museum practice

PUBLICATIONS

“Democratic Nostalgia: Arthurdale, West Virginia as a ‘Living Museum,’ in Local Museums and Local Histories, University of Illinois Press. 2006.

“The Cumberland Homesteads,” in Culture of the Upper Cumberlands, University of Kentucky Press. 2004.

SELECTED COLLOQUIA

“Figuring Space Out with Einstein and Picasso,” presented to the Association for Core Texts and Courses Annual Conference, Chicago, IL. Apr., 2006.

Participant and Organizer, Pioneering Communities Celebrating New Deal Resettlement and Revisiting Minority Land Issues: Past, Present and Future Conference at Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL. Dec., 2004.

 “How to Build a Community: Lessons from the New Deal,” presented to the Greenbelt Library and Museum, Greenbelt, MD. Nov., 2002.

“Utopia No Lasting State: Bloch and the Cumberland Homesteads” presented to “A Millennium of Utopias,” University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K. June, 1999.

“Faces and Places for Science: the politics of representing science at the Smithsonian Institution,” presented to ILA Graduate Colloquium, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Nov., 1998.

“Benjamin and the Chinese Painter,” presented to “Real Estate: Transactions in Culture and Space,” Third Annual ILA Graduate Student Conference, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. March, 1998.