Kirstin Ringelberg presents at 19th-century French Studies Colloquium

The Professor of Art History discussed archival revelations in the study of Belle Époque painter Madeleine Lemaire.

Kirstin Ringelberg, professor of art history, recently presented at the 19th-century French Studies Colloquium “Celebrity/Obscurity – Célébrité/Obscurité” co-hosted by Scripps College and the University of California, Riverside.

The presentation “Notorious, Minor, Queer?: Madeleine Lemaire Obfuscated and Outed” was one of three papers in the panel “Queer Notoriety at the Belle Époque.” In the talk, Ringelberg revealed new information gleaned from archival research this last summer in Paris, France, and called on the interdisciplinary audience to acknowledge the heteronormative gaze of historical studies despite all proof to the contrary.

This paper is one half of a chapter that forms the framework of a book in progress in which Ringelberg deploys the artist Madeleine Lemaire’s artwork and history to question the ongoing heteronormativity and cisnormativity of art history and studies of the Belle Époque. The other half of the chapter was recently presented at the Feminist Art History Conference.