The College of the Arts at Georgia State University welcomes and congratulates our new cohort of outstanding faculty whose work identifies them as expert scholars and practitioners in their respective fields.
Adéwálé Adénlé, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor, Drawing & Painting
Adéwálé (Wálé) Adénlé blurs boundaries among the visual arts and other fields of study to create bodies of three-dimensional paintings that explore dual realities and logics in cultural-political constructs and systems. Within these dualities, he induces slippages between objects/forms and their contexts to deconstruct dominant socio-political norms and historical narratives. His paintings and drawings are critically grounded on intentional interdisciplinarity, and they invite viewers to unload and search for multiple logics in their interpretations. Adénlé has exhibited his paintings and drawings on three continents and has taught visual arts in several universities and K-12 programs in the US. Between 1986 and 2007, his works on critical aesthetics and political satire were published daily in various newspapers in Nigeria, the UK, and the US, culminating in the publication of his book, “Mixed Feelings” (2000), which documents his cartoons and illustrations on socio-political concerns across the globe. Read more...
Jared Richardson – Assistant Professor, African Art History
Dr. Jared C.B. Richardson is an independent curator and scholar of modern and contemporary art and Black diaspora studies. He earned his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. He also received his Master of Arts from the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin and his Bachelor of Arts in from the Departments of Art History and Philosophy at the University of Miami. In 2019, Richardson completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Program of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. His research interests also include sound studies, popular culture, new materialisms, and the visual economies of the Black diaspora. Read more...
Zipporah Camille Thompson – Assistant Professor, Textiles
Zipporah Camille Thompson is a ceramicist, weaver, sculptor, and activist residing upon dispossessed land of the Muskogee in Atlanta, GA. With deep Carolina roots, Thompson explores alchemical transformations through clay + textiles, uplifting marginalized bodies and eliciting social change through her work. Her craft-based practice acknowledges the displacement and sustained oppression of BIPOC folx. Sculpted shapeshifters and landscapes investigate hybridity – taking cues from mythology, the otherworldly, and “make-do” culture, weaving together something from nothing. Read more…
Felicia Castro – Visiting Lecturer, Drawing, Painting & Printmaking
Felicia Castro is an artist and educator working in Atlanta Georgia. She is from Las Cruces, New Mexico where earned a B.F.A. from New Mexico State University with a minor in Art History. In 2022 she received an M.F.A. from Georgia State University. Her current body of work focuses on assimilation, family, and themes of self-definition and identity as a Mexican American. Her practice focuses on painting, video and sculpture. Read more…
Pegah Eghbalzad – Visiting Lecturer, Interior Design
Pegah Eghbalzad earned her B.F.A. in Studio Art and Interior Design here at Georgia State University, and received a Master of Architecture degree from Georgia Tech. In addition, she brings six years of professional practice experience in design, as well as more recent experience as a part-time instructor in Interior Design for us at GSU. Read more…
Darya Fard – Visiting Lecturer, Printmaking
Darya Fard is a multidisciplinary artist with Printmaking concentration whose work examines spiritual exploration by creating metaphorical, symbolic mythical creatures inspired by Persian poetry, mythology, and psychological studies. Darya received her M.F.A. degree from GSU, Atlanta, in 2022 and her first M.F.A. degree in painting in Iran, Tehran. Her primary aesthetic concern is in intersecting visual art and time-based mediums with Persian literature, mythology, and psychology incorporating scientistic studies and natural phenomena. Read more...
Connor Hamm – Visiting Lecturer, Art History
Connor Hamm is a Ph.D. candidate in art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He researches African American art history with a focus on Black artists working in the US South from the nineteenth century to the present. He has held fellowships with the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the American Council of Learned Societies and has written for Art in America and the Brooklyn Rail. Read more…
Alice Klima – Visiting Lecturer, Art History
Dr. Alice Klima received her Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture from Brown University. Her area of expertise focuses on late medieval and early modern Central European built environments. She is interested in the meaning of architecture as generated through daily use and function of space, especially in monastic communities, in addition to the process of building and patronage. Her recent publication titled “Entwined Meanings and Organic Form at the Prague Cathedral Royal Oratory” in Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture (Brill, 2023) considers politics, religious reform and theoretical implications of a royal monument. She has taught a broad range of art history classes and enjoys introducing students to the history of art. Read more…
Hanna Newman – Visiting Lecturer, Ceramics
Hanna has both a B.F.A. and M.A. from Minnesota State University and completed her M.F.A. in Ceramics at Georgia State. Newman recently completed two years as an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Middle Georgia State University in 3D Studies and Ceramics. Her multidisciplinary installations are comprised of figurative sculptures, objects retrieved from domestic spaces, projected video, and ambient sound to create a fragmented space that reflects a psychological space. Read more..
Lizzy Storm – Visiting Lecturer, Drawing, Painting & Printmaking
Lizzy Storm is an artist and educator who received her M.F.A. in Drawing and Painting in 2022 at Georgia State University, and a B.F.A. in 2012 from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been exhibited at non-profits, artist-run spaces, and museums in the Northeast and Atlanta such as the Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ; Montclair State University Segal Gallery, Montclair, NJ; Temporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA; and University of Georgia Glass Gallery, Athens, GA; among others. Her work is in the collections of the Newark Public Library and numerous private collectors. Read more…
Kate Fortmueller — Associate Professor, Media
Kate Fortmueller is the author of Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production (long-listed for the Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award) and Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID (both University of Texas Press, 2021). Her research on film and television labor has appeared in journals including Film History, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Media Industries, and a variety of edited collections. In addition to her scholarly work, she has published in the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Washington Post and has served as an expert commentator on Hollywood labor for publications including The Atlantic, The Hollywood Reporter, NPR, and Variety. Read more…
Jenny Gunn – Assistant Professor, Film Theory
Jenny Gunn is an Assistant Professor of Film Theory in the School of Film, Media & Theatre at Georgia State University. Her current book project examines historic and contemporary cinematic expressions of subjectivity in the aftermath of the webcam and the forward-facing smartphone camera. Her broader research interests include film theory and film philosophy, digital media theory, and visual culture studies. Read more…
Benjamin DuPriest – Assistant Professor in Theory
Musicologist Benjamin DuPriest researches, writes and teaches about music and aural cultures in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of cultural heritage and race in the American South. As both an ethnographer and a historian, Dr. DuPriest examines the histories of popular music, jazz, and folklore in the deep South and beyond. His current project is a study of the history of blues folklore and tourism in North Mississippi. In it, he examines the widespread and popular celebration of the blues as a form of cultural heritage in the state, focusing on the music of the North Mississippi hill country. Secondary research interests include the circulation of music between West Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S., as well as the technological histories of musical production, reproduction and consumption. Read more...
Tamara Dworetz — Assistant Professor, Director of Orchestral Studies
Dr. Tamara Dworetz comes to Georgia State University with an impressive background working with professional, collegiate and youth orchestras. Professionally, she has conducted the Paris Mozart Orchestra, Boston Pops, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Mankato Symphony and Georgia Philharmonic. In the 2023-24 season, she will make her debut with the Arkansas Symphony featuring acclaimed pianist, Conrad Tao. Dworetz has also worked with world-class orchestras and conductors in Europe as Assistant Conductor – Orchestre de Paris with Klaus Mäkelä, Gürzenich Orchestre Cologne with François-Xavier Roth and the BBC Concert Orchestra with her late mentor, Bramwell Tovey. As an opera conductor, she has led the Dallas Opera Orchestra and served as Assistant Conductor for Indianapolis, Atlanta and Butler Center Operas. Dr. Dworetz was recently selected as 1 of 14 candidates from a worldwide pool in the 2022 La Maestra Conducting Competition and Academy for Women Conductors in Paris, France. Read more...
David Sweeten AKA DJ Burn One – Visiting Professor of Practice, Music Industry
Over the last 20 years, Burn One has cemented a reputation as one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the modern South. Known for producing trunk-rattling and deeply funky hip-hop, Burn One began releasing mixtapes as a high school student. This led to the first part of his legend: as the DJ who educated Gucci Mane about the necessity of doing mixtapes, and who de facto executive produced the Zone 6 icon’s seminal, Chicken Talk. Read more..
Talise Trevigne – Lecturer, Voice, Soprano
American soprano Talise Trevigne begins the 2019-20 Season in a return appearance with CBSO for Tippett’s A Child of our Time in performances in the UK and Germany conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Returning to the US. she makes her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Kitty Hart (Sister Rose c) Dead Man Walking before traveling to Albany Symphony to sing Knoxville: Summer of 1915. She joins the Metropolitan Opera cast of Porgy & Bess and later in the season returns to the role of Mimi in La Boheme at Fort Worth Opera. Read more...
Emily Hobson-Gallardo — Visiting Lecturer, Choral Ensembles
Dr. Emily Hobson-Gallardo is serving as a Lecturer in Choral Studies at the Georgia State University School of Music. At GSU she conducts the Treble Choir, Choral Union, and teaches courses in conducting. She recently returned to the Atlanta area after completing her Doctorate in Choral Conducting at the University of Houston Moores School of Music. Prior to this appointment she served as the Director of Choirs at Oglethorpe University. In Houston, she served as the Assistant Conductor of the Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Rehearsal Conductor of the Houston Symphony Chorus, and as the Assistant Conductor/Choral Conducting Intern with the GRAMMY award-winning Houston Chamber Choir for the 2019-2021 seasons. Prior to relocating to Houston, she was the Assistant Director of Choirs at the University of West Georgia. At UWG she conducted the Concert Choir, taught the Aural Skills sequence, Choral Methods and Materials, as well as Music Appreciation. She was a conductor of the Greater Atlanta Girls Choir, and also taught middle and high choral school programs in Fayette County and Marietta City Schools. Read more…