Kylie Fisher

Assistant Professor of Art History

Curriculum Vitae
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Kylie Fisher is a specialist in early modern print history and visual culture. After completing her doctorate at Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Museum of Art, she joined Furman’s faculty in 2021. At Furman, Kylie teaches a range of courses about global art and material culture along with museological theory with special emphasis on how these disciplines intersect with socio-cultural issues, including gender, sexuality, race, dis/ability, sustainability, and socio-political resistance and activism. She has also contributed to Furman’s Pathways Program, First-Year Writing Program, graduate program in Advocacy and Social Policy, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, for which she also serves on the oversight committee.

Kylie’s current research explores ambiguous and queer bodies—representational and metaphorical—in early modern visual culture. She is interested in how images and objects that portray seemingly non-normative forms and identities complicate binary understandings of humanness and the constructed “other.” Additionally, Kylie has presented her research throughout the US and abroad, as well as curated exhibitions at academic and civic institutions, including Furman’s Thompson Gallery, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, and the Smith College Museum of Art.

Kylie's teaching and research interests are fueled by a desire to disrupt dominant narratives and silos that are present in the art historical canon, advocating for the decolonization of art history in both academic and museum settings. She is committed to making the study of art, culture, and history accessible and relevant to all students. Through emphasizing the primacy that visual representations play in our development of cultural attitudes and historical perspectives, Kylie's classes aim to instill a sense of empathy and activism in her students to combat the prejudices that are often promoted through works of art and architecture.

Education

  • Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University
  • M.A., The Courtauld Institute of Art (London)
  • B.A., Smith College

Representative Publications

  • “Travels Down South: Stories of Asians and Asian Americans in South Carolina,” Carolina Currents 2 (2025): 169-194; co-authored with Eli Kibler ’24 and Eva Kiser ‘23
  • “Design of New Campus Both Modern and Traditional,” Placing Furman, published February 2025, https://www.furman.edu/fu/placing-furman/design-of-new-campus-both-modern-and-traditional; co-authored with Sarah Archino and Stephen Mandravelis
  • “Curation as Storytelling and Advocacy,” Shuddhashar FreeVoice, no. 42, published February 3, 2025, https://shuddhashar.com/curation-as-storytelling-and-advocacy/
  • “Possessing the Past through Print: Sixteenth-Century Engravings of Imagined Antiquities,” Sixteenth Century Journal 55, no. 1-2 (September 2024): 133-169
  • “Untold Journeys: Exploring Furman and Greenville’s Connections with Asia” (collaborative DH project with two Furman undergraduate students, Eli Kibler ‘24 and Eva Kiser ‘23), originally published July 29, 2022 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4844f5d2a6a24ab497a01a465ce5e9c8
  • “Reconstructing Ancient Rome in Sixteenth-Century Prints,” Rutgers Art Review 37 (2021): 30-63
  • “Printmaking in Europe, c. 1400-1800,” Smarthistory, https://smarthistory.org/printmaking-europe-1400−1800/ (2020)
  • “Glossary of Technical and Material Terms,” in Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings, edited by Andrew C. Weislogel and Andaleeb Badiee Banta, 212-214 (Ithaca, NY: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 2017)
  • “Drawing from Mantegna: Engaging with Engraving in Cinquecento Northern Italian Art,” Athanor 35 (2017): 29-35

Honors and Awards

  • Outstanding New Faculty Advisor Award, National Academic Advising Association (2025)
  • Alester G. Furman Jr. and Janie Earle Furman Meritorious Advising Award, Furman University (2025)
  • Chiles-Harrill Award (awarded by the graduating senior class to the faculty or staff member who had the greatest influence on the class), Furman University (2025)
  • DEI Mini-Grant, Furman University (2024, 2023)
  • FHC Research Cluster Grant, Furman Humanities Center, Furman University (2024)
  • Teaching Development Grant, Faculty Development Center, Furman University (2023)
  • FHC Faculty and Student Research Fellowship, Furman Humanities Center, Furman University (2023)
  • Emerging Scholar Distinguished Presentation Award, Midwest Art History Society (2022)
  • Samuel H. Kress Foundation Award for Smarthistory Essay (2020)
  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Case Western Reserve University (2015-2020)
  • Friends of Art Best Overall Performance by a PhD Student Award, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University (2020)
  • Mellon Fellowship in Humanities Teaching at Community Colleges, Case Western Reserve University and Cuyahoga Community College (2020)
  • Graduate Research Grant, Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case Western Reserve University (2019)
  • Walter Read Hovey Memorial Fund Scholarship, The Pittsburgh Foundation (2019)
  • Eva L. Pancoast Memorial Fellowship, Case Western Reserve University (2018)
  • Graduate Dean’s Instructional Excellence Award, Case Western Reserve University (2017)

Research Interests

  • print culture
  • collecting
  • epistemology and ontology
  • memory-making
  • collective and cultural identity
  • museum studies
  • curatorial studies
  • Public Humanities
  • art as activism
  • queer and gender theory

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