About Dr. Smith
About Dr. Smith
Cassandra A. Smith (BFA, University of Tulsa; MFA, MA, and PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago) is a Visiting Lecturer in Contemporary Art, with a particular focus on Indigenous Art. Dr. Smith’s area of specialization is Indigenous art, film, and performance, and she situates her research and pedagogy within the disciplinary and methodological frameworks of Indigenous studies, digital humanities, performance studies, gender studies, decolonial museum practices, and critical ethnographic studies.
Dr. Smith strongly believes that engagement with the arts is vital to the development of the analytical skills necessary to the formation of a more just and equitable world, and she encourages students to consider the significance of an arts education to the creation of an informed global citizenry. Her teaching and research engage with key cultural concepts such as land-based knowledge systems; themes of materiality, relationality, and performativity; and strategies of refusal—concerns that powerfully intersect with Feminist, Queer, Black, and Latinx art histories and practices and contribute to an expanding global and anti-colonial art-historical discourse.
Education
- BFA, Studio Arts, University of Tulsa
- MFA, Studio Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago
- MA, Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago
- PhD, Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Performativity and Metaphor: The Kiva Murals at Pottery Mound"
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Upcoming scholarly presentations
2025
“Skeena Reece, Access Granted: Hair as Site of Identity, Violence, Kinship, and Power,” College Art Association Conference, New York
“Understanding Contemporary Indigenous Performance Art through the Lens of Kincentricity,” Midwest Art History Society Annual Conference, Denver
2024-present
Guest Curator, “Txem-Sym: A Tribute to Northwest Coast Carvers,” Spurlock Museum of World Cultures
Selected publications
“Pottery Mound Kiva Murals: Conduits Between Realms,” Source: Notes in the History of Art, The University of Chicago Press Journals Division (Manuscript submitted for review)
“Metaphor, Portraiture, and Queering: The Diverse Gendering of Pottery Mound Murals,” About Face: Portraiture in the Ancient Americas, ed. Virginia E. Miller and Annabeth Headrick (Manuscript submitted for publication)
“Access Granted: Indigenous-Centered Pedagogy in Practice,” First American Art Magazine (Manuscript in preparation)
Interpretive analysis of Skeena Reece’s Access Granted performance (Title TBA), Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory (Manuscript in preparation)
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
ARTH 299: Ancestral to Early Modern Native American Art
ARTH 299: Modern and Contemporary Native American Art
ARTH 361: Contemporary Art
ARTH 491: Indigenous-Centered Museum Practices
ARTH 491: Native American Art: A Disciplinary History
ARTH 550: Gender Performance and Diversity in Indigenous Art and Cultural Contexts
ARTS 595: MFA Graduate Laboratory
ART 595: Professional Practices