Newsroom – California State University, Northridge

Art Professor Owen Doonan Named CSUN’s 2011-2012 Jerome Richfield Memorial Scholar

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Mar. 13th, 2012) ―

Archaeologist and art historian Owen Doonan has been named California State University, Northridge’s Jerome Richfield Memorial Scholar.

The honor named for the late Jerome Richfield, a dean emeritus and professor of philosophy at Cal State, Northridge, is awarded each year to an outstanding faculty member conducting research in the arts, sciences or humanities. The honor includes the opportunity for the scholar to share his research with the campus community.

Doonan, who specializes in the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, will discuss how these past cultures connect to the modern world on Wednesday, March 21, at 4 p.m. in the Oviatt Library Presentation room located in the center of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. His lecture is titled “Post-Post-Colonial Arts: Visual expressions of dynamic world systems from the Argonauts to Arab Spring.”

He emphasized how humbled he was to be named this year’s Jerome Richfield Scholar.

Doonan earned his doctorate from Brown University and has taught, traveled and done research all over the world.

“I’m very aware of the really great work my colleagues are doing, and the idea that I would be singled out, it’s great, it’s wonderful,” he said. “It also means that I’ve got to keep up the good work. An award like this isn’t something you get for the past; you get it for looking towards the future. I take this as a push to expand on what I’m doing.”

Doonan said his interest in the cultural transformations relating to the interactions with other cultures, blossomed in grad school at Brown University, when he was writing his dissertation on early Sicily and the impact of different groups coming together on how urban and household design was transformed by contact between different cultures. His first job after leaving Brown was teaching at Bilkent University in Turkey.

“I was always interested in culture, history and archeology, and how they come together,” he said. ‘Art can tell us about culture, human practices and relationships in ways that other forms of communication can’t. Art is one of the most important forms of communication, particularly when different cultures come together.”

A desire to share his passion in art served as a catalyst for him and business partner D. Carl Dentzel opening a contemporary art gallery in Northridge called The New Sahara Galley.

“We were interested in the impact that art can have on people’s ideas of other cultures,” said Doonan. “As a person who has spent a substantial portion of my life in Middle East, it was clear that artists there are producing really exciting contemporary art. However, in the United States there is very little to no appreciation about the achievements of contemporary Middle Eastern artists and intellectuals.

“There is this stereotype that the Middle East is not very contemporary or progressive, and I knew that wasn’t true,” he continued. “All the Middle Eastern art you see in museums and in books are from the past, and I want to change the way people think about Arab, Turkish and Persian cultures. I’m hoping that The New Sahara is one way to do that.”

Doonan said he hopes to pass on his passion for the study of culture and art to his students both inside and outside the classroom.

In 2009, he took a group of CSUN Students to Sinop to a new archeological field school he and his colleague, Alex Bower, a professor at Queens College, developed.

The program offered students a hands-on experience as they listened to lectures and traveled to 14 different sites to give them an “idea and broad exposure to different research methods, why these archeologists do what they do, and their results,” Doonan said.

“One of the things that really impressed me about CSUN when I was first looking to come here,” he said, “was CSUN is a learning centered university where people are doing some really exciting research. There is vibrancy in the intellectual community here when it comes to learning, doing research and connecting to the real world.”

 

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