As instructors at the University of Oregon we have been very excited over the years to work closely with the First-Year Programs (FYP). FYP allows us to assist incoming UO students with their transition into the University and develop students’ thinking as new academics within their larger role as intellectuals and researchers at the UO.

‘Art Meets Science’ lets both of us further expand questions we ask in various other undergraduate courses questions, including:

a) How are cultural artistic meanings applied to scientific images?

b) How do representations of science in popular media influence how artists produce images for science?

c) What are some ways in which artists repurpose, redefine, and appropriate these scientific images?

d) How do artists modify those images and original intentions?

f)  How do scientific images gain cultural and artistic value?

g)  What are the aesthetic properties of scientific images?

h)  What art historical and aesthetic tools can we apply to successfully critique scientific images to help generate knowledge exhibition in public settings?

h) How do these images fit into larger traditionally defined artistic canons?

i)  What are ways in which arts administrators, such as museum curators, display and exhibit these type of images in both artistic and scientific forums?

Over their years in collaboration, Julie and Robert have worked on multiple research and instructional projects together.  Before the ‘Art Meets Science’ seminar, they co-taught a First-Year Seminar on ‘Creative Collaborations’ which examined the ways artists and arts administrations work closely together in creating dynamic works of art.  Additionally, both Julie and Robert are participating faculty in the UO’s Comics and Cartoon Studies Minor and recently co-authored the article “Stuck in Tights: Mainstream Superhero Comics’ Habitual Limitations on Social Constructions of Male Superheroes” for the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2014.889732.

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Julie Voelker-Morris

Julie holds a Masters Degree in Arts Management, undergraduate degrees in English Literature and Theatre Arts, and a certificate in Urban Arts Studies. Julie is interested in the arts on many levels, with special interest in issues related to gender and art, art and oppressions, the body as political entity, and various elements of performance, process, and production of identity, particularly through theatrical and visual arts. Pedagogical praxis in support of learning and applying cultural and critical studies among students is of key emphasis in her undergraduate courses. Julie has conducted and published independent research on the history of large-scale theatrical pageants in Eugene, portrayals of comic book superheroes, and theatrical practice.

She has taught a variety of undergraduate courses for First-Year Programs (including First-Year Interest Groups and Seminars), the Arts & Administration Program, and the Comics and Cartoon Studies Minor at the University of Oregon.

Robert Voelker-Morris

Robert has been teaching for the Arts Administration Program since 2003 in the areas of visual and media literacy and graduate level writing research proposals. His section of the undergraduate Arts and Visual Literacy course was part of the  the UO’s Comics and Cartoon Studies Minor. Among other teaching opportunities, Robert has facilitated courses for the First Year Programs on the topics of “Creative Collaborations” and “‘zines and Do It Yourself Democracy”.

Currently Robert is the Faculty Technology Consultant for the Teaching Effectiveness Program (TEP) at the University of Oregon.   He holds a Masters degree in Arts and Administration with a concentration in museum studies from the UO and a Bachelors degree in Art History from Oregon State University.  Of great interest to Robert includes the research of the various intersections of visual and media literacy, comic book studies, visualization of information, art history, photography, cinema studies, and new media.