Margaryta Golovchenko

This is a photo of me, taken by my husband, at a visit to the Japanese garden in Portland. Despite my research focus on 18th and 19th century Europe, as well as my broader expertise in modern and contemporary Western and Eastern European and North American art, I continually make an effort to learn about cultures outside of this research focus as a way of ensuring I am a more well-rounded person.

Degree: PhD in Art History

Expected Graduation Date: Spring 2025

Prior Degree
Honours BA, University of Toronto
MA in Art History, York University, Toronto, Canada

2023 Scholarship
Marian Donnelly Student Award

I Am Originally From Toronto, Ontario, Canada

WHY I CAME TO THE UO AND HOW I CHOSE MY MAJOR

I chose the UO to pursue my PhD because of the school’s interdisciplinary focus and the College of Design’s commitment to the environmental humanities. I felt like it was a place where I could apply the theoretical work from fields like philosophy and women and gender studies and apply them to visual culture, particularly in a historical context.

I was drawn to art history because of the way images can serve as “texts” that can tell us how people thought and what they valued in a specific moment of time, as well as then consider how their thinking changed. I am interested in relational thinking across time and cultures within art history. My own research also strives to imbue the field with more discourse from animal studies and ecofeminist, ideas that are more recent but which can serve as vital frames of reference for rethinking how we engage with art.

UNIQUE QUALITIES I BRING TO MY STUDIES
As an immigrant (I was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine and came to Toronto with my parents when I was 4) and a queer woman, intersectionality is incredibly important to me both in my research and in my pedagogical approach. I believe in emphasizing the fluidity of gender and the constructed nature of nationality, with language as merely one of the means by which people have historically bonded together. This experience has cultivated my conviction that art history, and the humanities more broadly, should strive to establish conversations that are less rooted in memorization of fact than about understanding the implications of social, political, and economical developments.

MY INFLUENTIAL PROFESSORS
My supervisor, Nina Amstutz, Associate Professor of Art History, has been a source of confidence and encouragement throughout my time at the UO. She understands and supports my desire to bring environmental humanities frameworks into the field of art history. Similarly, Emily Scott, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Environmental Studies, and Stacy Alaimo, Professor of English, have been wells of wisdom that have continuously challenged my thinking, pointing me to recent scholarship and posing provocative questions that have taken my research further than I would have expected.

MY EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
I am the treasurer of the Art History Student Association (AHSA) and was previously the president of AHSA. I have remained involved in the organization because of my deep belief in building community between undergraduates and graduates and majors and non-majors, as well as cultivating a passion for art history in those who may have chosen not to focus their studies on the field.

MY GREATEST LEARNING EXPERIENCE AT UO
My greatest learning experience at UO has been my current involvement with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art as part of their leadership council and curatorial committee. I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about how the museum functions, the process of deciding which artworks to purchase/donations to accept, and even gain some curatorial experience through a show and a tour I am currently working on.

AFTER GRADUATION
My goal is to become a university professor, to continue producing research and teaching. I believe that my time at the UO will make me a balanced scholar and instructor, both in terms of the kinds of topics and materials I would teach and in terms of my priorities in the classroom and in my publications.

YOUR GIFT
This award has fully supported my trip to a 3-day conference at the University of Freiburg in Germany on the theme of “Environmental and Cultural Destruction in Imperial Spaces,” which took place November 30-December 2, 2023. During these three days, I engaged in meaningful conversations with other scholars on the importance of postcolonial and more-than-human thinking in how empire is approached, especially at such a fraught time when modern-day empires are continuing to exert violence. This conference provided me with an opportunity to test out an animal history approach to art history/history, which I will have the chance to further refine when the paper is published in an accompanying volume.

I am deeply grateful for the continued support that early career academics such as myself are able to receive through generous support from visionary donors. As an international student and an immigrant, international conferences like the one this scholarship supported would not be possible without this financial support. I am grateful to have the opportunity to develop connections with the international community and to share my own research. Not only does it develop my speaking skills and my academic CV, but it also gives me a sense of reassurance and confidence that the work that I do is important and of interest.