Kristine Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Ames School of Art & Design and a Faculty Affiliate of the International & Global Studies Program. From 2021-2023 she was the Director of the Humanities Program. Professor Nielsen teaches modern and contemporary art from a global perspective and engages with a broader field of visual culture. She frequently uses academic games to engage students in the history of art and her courses in the Art History Program make use of campus art collections, the Merwin & Wakeley Galleries, local galleries, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Nielsen is currently pursuing two lines of research. The first focuses on iconoclasm and public monuments in twentieth-century Germany, in particular the political monuments of the German Democratic Republic. Her second and more recent area of research centers on Nordic contemporary artists and the history of Nordic colonialism. Prior to joining the faculty at IWU, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities with the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. She also held a joint appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Art and the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Nielsen’s research has been supported by the Getty Research Institute, the Stone Summer Theory Institute, Knud Højgaards Fond, University of Chicago’s Lipman Fellowship, Century Scholarship, University Grant, Harrison Doolittle Travel Fellowship, Humanities Division Travel Grant, Kathleen J. Shelton Memorial Travel Fellowship, and Visiting Committee on the Visual Arts fellowship.
Courses taught
GW 100 Visual Literacy
ART 110 Close Looking
ART 115 Introduction to Art History
ART 220 Introduction to Visual Culture
ART 320 Global Modern Art
ART 322 Global Contemporary Art
ART 399 Art Seminar