Cassandra Smith
PhD, 2023: Native American Art, Performance, and Film
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About
Cassandra Smith (BFA, University of Tulsa; MFA, MA, and PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago) is a Visiting Lecturer in Contemporary Art, with a particular focus on Indigenous Art at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Smith’s area of specialization is Native American art, film, and performance, and she situates her research and pedagogy within the disciplinary and methodological frameworks of Indigenous studies, digital humanities, performance studies, gender studies, decolonial museum practices, and critical ethnographic studies.
Dr. Smith strongly believes that engagement with the arts is vital to the development of the analytical skills necessary to the formation of a more just and equitable world, and she encourages students to consider the significance of an arts education to the creation of an informed global citizenry. Her teaching and research engage with key cultural concepts such as land-based knowledge systems; community responsibility; themes of materiality, relationality, and performativity; and strategies of refusal—concerns that powerfully intersect with Feminist, Queer, Black, and Latinx art histories and practices and contribute to an expanding global and anti-colonial art-historical discourse.
Education
PhD in Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago
MA in Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago
MFA in Studio Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago
BFA in Studio Arts, University of Tulsa