Bringing energy, empathy, generosity, dedication, knowledge, and, above all, extraordinary quality of mind, Alexandra Dennett excelled as a teaching fellow for the course Manet to Man Ray: Modern Art and Its Colonial Matrix. New for fall 2021, the course involved a comprehensive reconceptualization of the history of modern art between 1860 and 1940 in terms of the European quest for empire. “It represented a rigorous attempt to decolonize our primary field of study,” says Maria Gough, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. Professor of Modern Art. “With Alexandra’s expert guidance, the students studied how modernist innovation was shaped by the violence of imperial expansion, and the domination of colonized peoples.”
Dennett served as the sole TF for the class, leading two sections of 22 undergraduates, and received outstanding feedback. “Alexandra was one of the best teaching fellows I’ve had in my time at Harvard,” one student wrote. “In section, we had really engag[ing] and thought-provoking back-and-forths. I especially appreciated how we would delve into the primary sources in section, which there usually wasn’t time for in lecture.” Another commented, “She added an important dimension to class by providing a warm and inviting space where we could reflect on the lectures and continue our discussion of the selected artworks for that week.”
In addition to teaching sections, Dennett dedicated a great deal of time to individual consultations with each undergraduate as they developed exhibition proposals that grappled with the difficult issues under discussion in the course. The objective was to get them to think about how such issues might be visualized and spatialized for a museum audience, then to imagine themselves as art critics charged with writing a “review” of a classmate’s exhibition proposal. When it came time for grading, Dennett provided extraordinarily astute and extensive written feedback. “It is greatly to Alexandra’s credit that she was so successful in ‘scaling up’ to our open-enrollment lecture course, precisely the kind of intensive, hands-on teaching that is much more easily done in a limited-enrollment seminar format,” says Gough.
It was not just in the execution of the course, however, that Dennett played a fundamental role; she fully participated in the planning stage. “Prior to the start of the semester, she and I debated at length the many complex—not to mention profoundly controversial—issues raised by its proposed historical and geographical breadth,” says Gough. “In order to prepare the syllabus, we reviewed a slew of readings together, studied available museum collections with a view to facilitating in-person visits for students, and brainstormed new forms of assessment. All of this even before the semester began.”
Alexandra Dennett, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is pleased to present you with the Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching of Undergraduates. Congratulations!
Photo courtesy of Alexandra Dennett
