Making and Unmaking Bodies: Academic Women in Art Education

The 2014 suspension of an art education program at State University, a research institution in the Midwest, leads the author’s journey into exploring truths. The exploration begins with biographical artifacts from her academic ancestry at the University. Specifically, the author uses Foucault’s genealogical analysis of descent to investigate visually 10 portrait photographs and two biographies that traverse the 20th century. The visual analysis reveals the ways in which truths both make and unmake the bodies of women academic art teachers at State University. Ultimately, she learns that truths cannot totally imprint bodies without also rendering parts of those truths obsolete. This research also exposes how discourse and the material are marginalized through creative analysis. The concluding discussion challenges art educators to investigate the practices that “disrupt or sustain relations of power and advance knowledge” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, p. 57) so that they can continue pushing art education forward in the 21st century.