Elizabeth (PhD candidate, Art History) writes, "I am pleased to share that I have accepted a 9-month Research Residency at the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities/Centro per la Storia dell’Arte e dell’Architettura delle Città Portuali, in Naples, Italy. I will be part of an inaugural group of Ph.D. candidates invited to live and work on the grounds of the Museo e Real Bosco Capodimonte, at La Capraia. This residency will facilitate unprecedented access to resources in the city, foster professional connections with other graduates and scholars, and create a platform to share research across academic, museum, and public spheres. The residency project I have proposed to complete will contribute a vital strand to my dissertation research, which re-centers port cities, including Naples, as hubs of cultural production, to examine how art and architecture negotiated constructs of chronic infection and healing during the sixteenth century.

The Center and Research Residency is newly established through a partnership between The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas Dallas and the Museo Capodimonte. The research initiatives are supported by numerous institutional collaborations, including with the Université Paris-Sorbonne. In the words of the Center, research “will be dedicated to on-site study of art and architecture in Naples, with emphasis on the cultural histories of port cities and the mobilities of artworks, artists, and technologies. While focused on Naples, research at the Center will inform understanding of port cities and cultural centers throughout the world, from antiquity to the present.” (https://www.utdallas.edu/arthistory/port-cities/)."