During this special offsite lecture, Dr. James Denison, Postdoctoral Fellow at Kalamazoo College and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, will offer a new interpretation of the artist John Marin’s (1870–1953) work in Maine. Drawing on Marin’s writings, Denison’s presentation will investigate the artist’s attempted assimilation into what he perceived to be a rustic “Yankee” community on the Maine coast. Denison will relate Marin’s representations of denizens of the Maine coast to contemporaneous notions of whiteness and New England identity, situating the artist’s fascination with Maine within the long history of ethnic and cultural tourism in the state.

A native of the DC area and a graduate of Bowdoin College, James completed his PhD in art history at the University of Michigan, where he wrote a thesis on the connections between the Stieglitz Circle and racism in the interwar U.S. In 2023 he joined Kalamazoo College and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts as a postdoctoral fellow.

This lecture will take place in the Connable Recital Hall in the Light Fine Arts Building at Kalamazoo College, at the corner of Thompson and Academy Streets. The recital hall is located off of the main lobby, next to the Dalton Theatre. Parking can be found in the lot behind the building on Thompson Street, as well as on adjacent streets.