Professor Watchlist

Dr. Amelia Kraehe is an Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture Education in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona (UA).

According to her university profile, Dr. Kraehe also serves as the Associate Vice President for Equity in the Arts as well as the co-founder and co-director of the Racial Justice Studio. Both organizations are part of UA’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Dr. Kraehe’s profile also says she “employs interdisciplinary theories and methodologies that draw from the social sciences, visual and cultural studies, critical race theory, women of color feminisms, and justice studies.”

Dr. Kraehe co-edited “The Palgrave Handbook on Race and the Arts in Education” in which the authors claimed:

“Dominant understanding of ‘the arts’ and what it means to be an artist are profoundly shaped by racial logics and racial assumptions. Yet, because racism is foundational to Eurocentric understandings of culture and cultural production, it is always implicit in how the arts and artists are recognized and valued.”

In chapter one of their forthcoming book, “Race and Art Education,” Dr. Kraehe and her co-author wrote that despite major cultural changes in the art field:

“There remains a third rail for many art educations—’big ideas’ and topics that are too emotionally and politically charged to go near. . As non-White women who have been engaged in art and art education for more than 50 years combined, we believe that third rail is race—or more precisely, racism.”

 

Published August 1, 2023