Sarah C. Rosenthal

Sarah C. Rosenthal is a postdoctoral writing specialist in Humanities and Social Sciences at the Fellowships & Writing Center (FWC). She is a scholar of early modern European art and material culture whose research questions revolve around the contested ethics and agency of artistic practice, political selfhood and authority, the challenges of loss, and provincialism within a globalizing world. While developing a book based on her dissertation about the Swiss artist and mercenary soldier Urs Graf (ca. 1485–ca. 1528), Sarah continues to study identity objects like flags and daggers. She is also exploring material for a new project about placehood and early modern painted glass window panels. She has additionally written and published about art of the twentieth century, including in museum catalogue contributions written for general audiences. Sarah holds an MA with Distinction from the Courtauld Institute of Art, as well as both an AB and a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University.

As a fellow at the FWC, Sarah looks forward to helping graduate students strengthen and clarify their writing. In addition to providing feedback on application statements, dissertation sections, and works in progress for publication, she is always excited to discuss the peculiarities of academic writing and its variable accessibility. Her other writing-related fascinations include the place of personal narrative in scholarship, the craft of cross-disciplinary writing, and the rhetorical power of images.