Affiliated Departments & Programs
Melissa Dabakis teaches American and modern European art history, serves as a member of the American studies faculty and currently chairs the Department of Art History. She is the founding director of the Kenyon-Rome Program, and she will serve as its resident director again the fall of 2018.
She is the author of "Visualizing Labor in American Sculpture: Monuments, Manliness, and the Work Ethic, 1880-1935" (Cambridge University Press, 1999, paperback and digital editions, 2011, Arabic translation, 2017) and, more recently, "A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome" (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014, paperback edition 2015).
In the 2013-2014 academic year, Dabakis was the Terra Foundation Senior Fellow in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has also held fellowships from the Huntington Library, the United States Capitol Historical Society, the J. Paul Getty Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a co-organizer of two international conferences, sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art: "Hybrid Republicanism: Italy and American Art, c. 1848-1918," hosted by the American Academy in Rome on October 6-7, 2016," and "The Course of Empires: American-Italian Cultural Relations, 1770-1980," held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. on October 19-20, 2017.
In April 2015, Dabakis was interviewed about "A Sisterhood of Sculptors" for the blog "New Books in Gender Studies." Listen to or download her interview at newbooksingenderstudies.com. She was recently interviewed by the U.S. Capitol Visitor's Center about a sculpture from "A Sister of Sculptors." You can listen to the podcast here http://visitthecapitol.gov/blog/article/vinnie-ream-and-senate-debate.
Download the "Hybrid Republicanism: Italy and American Art, 1840-1918" conference brochure (PDF).
Areas of Expertise
American and modern European art history.
Education
1987 — Doctor of Philosophy from Boston University
1980 — Master of Arts from Boston University
1977 — Bachelor of Arts from Univ Connecticut