About Us

JoLynn Edwards

JoLynn Edwards
Professor

B.A., General and Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Washington
Ph.D., Art History, 1982, University of Washington

Office: UW1-344 and UW1-390
Phone: 425.352.5358 and 425.352.5350
Email: jolynn@u.washington.edu
Mailing: Box 358530, 18115 Campus Way NE, Bothell, WA 98011-8246

Teaching

At UWB I teach a variety of classes that encompass aspects of cultural history, visual culture, and comparative arts. I search to find common themes and the "friendly frictions" among visual, literary, dance, and musical "texts." My undergraduate degree on the comparative arts of the early modern period in Europe has grounded my lifelong dedication to interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary studies. As an art historian trained primarily in the western traditions from antiquity to the twentieth century and secondarily in east Asian cultures, I am interested in aesthetic connections among works of art across time and space as well as within one tradition. Two new courses, the "Cultural History of Rome" and "Paris: The City and its History," have allowed me to expand my interest into the phenomenon of urbanism. I try to elicit student enthusiasm for each subject and engagement with the content areas through response and research papers, small group discussions, and individual presentations or group projects.

Recent Courses Taught

BIS 309 History of Dance in Europe and America
BIS 372 Comparative Arts in 18th-Century Europe
BIS 373 Cultural History of Rome
BIS 376 Circa 1500, Arts of West and East
BIS 380 Art and its Context
BIS 417 Paris: The City and its History
BIS 476 Issues in Art History
BIS 478 Art Patronage and Markets

Research/Scholarship

My research interests encompass the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly French painting and drawing, Baroque dance and ballet d'action, and the rise of the art market and the commodification of culture before the French Revolution. Having worked in the area of the Parisian art market over the last twenty years culminating with my book, Alexandre-Joseph Paillet: expert et marchand de tableaux a la fin du XVIIIe siecle (1996), I have expanded my interests in the eighteenth century and am researching material for a new book on Louis-Francois de Bourbon, prince de Conti, an important collector of luxury products, including paintings, whose after-death sales flooded and destabilized the Parisian art market at the end of the 1770s. Conti's mistress, Marie-Charlotte-Hippolyte de Campet de Saujon, comtesse de Boufflers-Rouverel (1724-1800), was one of the leading women of late ancien regime Paris, who bridged the mondain and philosophe spheres. I am preparing an article on the correspondence between her and the philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume.

Selected Recent Publications

2002  "Watteau's Drawings: Artful and Natural," article for Cambridge Companion to Watteau, Mary Sheriff, editor
2001 "John Law and his Painting Collection: Connoisseur or Dupe?" for the anthology, Eighteenth-Century Art and Culture: New Dimensions and Multiple Perspectives, Elise Goodman, editor (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press): 59-75.