Summer Garden and Landscape Studies Graduate Workshop
May 22–June 9, 2023 | Intensive three-week workshop in Garden and Landscape Studies for PhD and MLA candidates and recent MLA graduates
Landscape Histories and Historiography
To develop the field of garden and landscape studies across disciplines and to promote the depth and breadth of future scholarship in landscape and place-based histories, Dumbarton Oaks, with support from the Mellon Initiative in Democracy & Landscape Studies and in partnership with the University of Virginia’s Center for Cultural Landscapes (CCL) and Morven Sustainability Lab, is hosting an intensive three-week Garden and Landscape Studies Graduate Workshop focused on Landscape Histories and Historiography.
Workshop
This workshop seeks to expand approaches to landscape and place-based histories with attention to grounding such investigations in the complexities of contested and counter archives and narratives. Bringing together PhD and advanced MLA candidates, the workshop focuses on the historiography and methods of landscape and environmental history writing and telling in ways that challenge traditional frameworks and sources engaging with concepts of sovereignty, authority, and authenticity. Workshop participants will critically interrogate core bodies of knowledge alongside emerging scholarship. We will visit the collections at Dumbarton Oaks Garden Library to explore seminal works in landscape and environmental history. Developing and using the tools of critical place-based narratives, we will engage with visiting scholars to consider the practices, methods, and approaches to inquiry on the histories of democracy in place that foregrounds questions of race, gender, and identity. For the third and final week, we will travel to the University of Virginia for an in-place inquiry into narratives and histories of land, landscape, and place in collaboration with CCL and Morven. We will learn with founding CCL Co-Director and Morven Faculty Director Elizabeth Meyer, MLA, and CCL Co-Director Andrea Roberts, PhD, who are leading efforts to expand and enrich how we read the landscapes of Virginia, the University of Virginia, and Morven Farm to more fully realize the stories of all who have lived and moved through these lands. We will end back at Dumbarton Oaks where we will speculate the futures of critical landscape and place-based histories and scholarship.
Student Participation
Eligible applicants include PhD candidates writing dissertations, current advanced MLA candidates and recent MLA recipients who have received their degree between May 2021 and May 2023. Applicants may be from any discipline whose research is engaged in landscape, garden, and/or environmental histories. Students should have a thesis or dissertation project in process and be prepared to share their research with workshop participants. The workshop is an intensive program requiring full participation throughout. The first two weeks (May 22-June 4) the workshop will be on campus at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, with classes Mondays through Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. During the third week (June 5-8), we will travel to Charlottesville, VA. We will return to Washington on Thursday, June 8 and complete our workshop by 12 noon on Friday, June 9.
Travel and Accommodation
Dumbarton Oaks will provide accommodation at Dumbarton Oaks from May 21-June 9 in Washington, DC, lodging and travel to and from Charlottesville, VA, and arrange travel of round-trip economy-class airfare (if needed) to Washington, DC.
Applications
Applications must be submitted electronically by Wednesday, March 15, 2023, at 11:59 pm EST.
To apply, applicants must provide the following:
- A letter of interest
- A five-hundred-word abstract of their dissertation or thesis (recent MLA recipients should submit a statement of their previous thesis or relevant research interests)
- Curriculum Vitae
- One letter of recommendation. Candidates are strongly encouraged to request the letter from a faculty member who has instructed them and is familiar with their work.
International candidates are eligible to apply; however, Dumbarton Oaks does not sponsor J-visas for this program. For further information, please contact Garden and Landscape Studies.
Image: A map of South Carolina and a part of Georgia, created in London, 1780. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650.
Past Topics
2020s
Landscape History and Historiography
May 15–June 3, 2022 | Dumbarton Oaks and Virtual
With the support of the Mellon Initiative in Urban Landscape Studies, this workshop sought to ground histories of place, land, and landscape in the complexities of contested and counter narratives and sources. The workshop focused on the historiography and methods of landscape and environmental history writing challenging traditional frameworks and sources as well as questions of sovereignty, authority, and authenticity. It offered the opportunity to become more familiar with the core scholarship of the discipline while engaging in a productive critique of its development and its future. Participants interrogated seminal works in landscape and environmental history while exploring emerging practices, methods, and approaches to inquiry including scholarship on the public realm, and on democracy, race, gender, and identity, and the tools of critical place-based narratives.
Participants
- Sam Coren, Brown University
- Sarah Daiker, University of Pittsburgh
- Abiola Ibirogba, The Pennsylvania State University
- Molly McCahan, The Ohio State University
- Alba Menéndez Pereda, University of California, Los Angeles, California
- Robert Moeller, University of California, Berkeley
- Luis Mota, University of Southern California
- Sara Saad Alajmi, University of Pennsylvania
- Antonia Weiss, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
- Alex Zivkovic, Columbia University
Public Landscapes and Public Health: An Inquiry into the Histories of Landscape Design
May 10–28, 2021 | Virtual
With the support of the Mellon Initiative in Urban Landscape Studies, the 2021 Workshop focused on issues of public health and democracy. Bringing together early-career scholars and practitioners, the workshop addressed key issues in garden and landscape history and theory through the lenses of public health and democracy. Participants discussed seminal works in landscape and environment as they pertain to questions of public health, while exploring emerging practices and modes of inquiry related to theories of the public realm, race and identity, and environmental and urban history. As we trace the trajectories of landscape design, we might begin to reimagine futures that position the public realm as a site of collective health and wellbeing. Furthermore, a focus on the history of the public realm as a foundation for democracy challenges us to address calls for increased equity, inclusion, and environmental justice. These questions suggest an alternative foundation for teaching landscape history, one that interrogates the role of design in creating landscapes that are beautiful, productive, healthy, and just.
Participants
- Ebenezer Olamiposi Adeyemi, University of Iowa
- Diana Boric, Rutgers University
- Elza D’Cruz, Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology
- Evan Elderbrock, University of Oregon
- Negar Imani, Shiraz University
- Dirco Kok, Wageningen University
- Gwendolyn Lockman, University of Texas at Austin
- Gabriela Tie Nagoya Tamari, University of São Paulo
- Y. L. Lucy Wang, Columbia University
- Jon Winder, University of Kent
The Public Realm and the Design and Construction of Public Landscapes
May 18–June 5, 2020 | Virtual
Due to the circumstances surrounding COVID-19, instead of being an on-site workshop, we have developed a robust digital program of lectures, readings, discussions, and projects. We welcomed nine graduate students from schools across the nation whose research is engaged in questions of landscapes, gardens, and cities. These include students researching music history, cultural geography, social justice and design, philosophy, and so much more. The workshop engaged with readings, discussions, and guest lectures tackling key issues in landscape studies with special focus on public landscapes and the public realm. We discussed seminal works in landscape and urban history while exploring emerging practices and methods of inquiry such as theories of the public realm, race and identity, and environmental and urban history.
Participants
- Miguel Arango Calle, Indiana University
- Kathleen Conti, University of Texas at Austin/University of Wisconsin–Madison
- Jessica May Fletcher, Graduate Center, City University of New York
- Rachel Hirsch, Harvard University
- Sarah Mallory, Harvard University
- Chloé Skye Nagraj, University of Virginia
- Christina Shivers, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
- Maxwell Smith-Holmes, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
- Taryn Wiens, University of Virginia
2010s
2019 Summer Graduate Workshop
May 12–June 1, 2019 | Dumbarton Oaks and Oak Spring Garden Foundation
Bringing together early-career scholars and practitioners who are pursuing cross-disciplinary research on landscape-related topics, the workshop focused on key issues and texts in landscape history and theory, situating garden and landscape design in the context of humanities scholarship: from the idea of the Three Natures to the ecological challenges of the Anthropocene and the discourse of landscape urbanism. Special emphasis was laid on the study of urban landscapes.
The program also included two study sessions in the Rare Book Reading Room at Dumbarton Oaks, site visits in the Washington metropolitan area (including the National Mall, the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land, and Meridian Hill Park), and a three-day stay at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Upperville, Virginia, focused on the issues of conservation biology. During their residency at Dumbarton Oaks, workshop’s participants had access to the institute’s library resources and its celebrated gardens designed by Beatrix Farrand.
2018 Summer Graduate Workshop
May 13–June 2, 2018 | Dumbarton Oaks and the Center for Cultural Landscapes at the University of Virginia
Bringing together early-career scholars and practitioners who are pursuing cross-disciplinary research on landscape-related topics, the workshop focused on key issues and texts in landscape history and theory, situating garden and landscape design in the context of humanities scholarship: from the idea of the Three Natures to the ecological challenges of the Anthropocene and the discourse of landscape urbanism. Special emphasis will be laid on the study of urban landscapes.
The program also included two study sessions in the Rare Books Library at Dumbarton Oaks, site visits in the Washington metropolitan area (including Mount Vernon and the National Mall), and a three-day stay in Charlottesville, VA, with a visit to Richmond and James Madison’s Montpelier to explore the racial geographies of Virginia. During their residency at Dumbarton Oaks, workshop’s participants had access to the institute’s library resources and its celebrated gardens.
2017 Summer Graduate Workshop
June 5–23, 2017 | Dumbarton Oaks
Bringing together early-career scholars and practitioners who are pursuing cross-disciplinary research on landscape-related topics, the workshop focused on key sites, figures, and texts in garden and landscape design, theory, and history. It examined the historical evolution of landscape as an idea, investigating theoretical underpinnings and methodological implications of such concepts as nature, ecology, sustainability, and design; special emphasis was laid on urban landscape issues.
2016 Summer Graduate Workshop
June 6–18, 2016 | Dumbarton Oaks
Bringing together early-career scholars who are pursuing cross-disciplinary research on landscape-related topics, the workshop focused on key sites, figures, and texts in garden and landscape design and history. It investigated the historical evolution of landscape as an idea and laid special emphasis on theoretical underpinnings and methodological implications of such concepts as nature, ecology, sustainability, and design.
Frontiers in Urban Landscape Research
November 20, 2015 | Mellon Initiative in Urban Landscape Studies Graduate Workshop