Mitchell Herrmann
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History
Mitchell Herrmann received his Ph.D. from Yale University, taught previously at Sarah Lawrence College, and was a research fellow at the Museum of Modern Art. He specializes in global modern and contemporary art with interests in ecology and the environment, aesthetic theory, decolonial theory, performance, Black diasporic art, conceptual art, and science and technology in art. Herrmann’s current book project examines contemporary artists working with living organisms, and his second book project analyzes the relation between global conceptualism and logistical technology. His work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Newcombe Foundation.
Recent Courses Taught
Artists' Writings
Global Contemporary Art
Research Interests
Global modern and contemporary art, ecology and the environment, aesthetic theory, decolonial theory, performance, Black diasporic art, conceptualism, science and technology in art
Distinctions
- Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship (2025–26)
- Mellon Fellowship for Civic Engagement, Sarah Lawrence College (2025)
- Andrew W. Mellon Museum Research Consortium Fellowship, Museum of Modern Art (2023–24)
- Yale Graduate Impact Fellowship (awarded twice) (2022–23)
- Marshall Scholarship, United Kingdom (2016–18)
- Braunschweig PROJECTS Art Scholarship and Residency (2018)
Selected Publications
- (Forthcoming) “Oceanic Worlds: Contesting Global Space in Art of the 2010s.” Journal of Visual Culture
- (Forthcoming) “Sign, Affect, Trauma: Guillermo Galindo’s Sonic Readymades.” Source: Notes in the History of Art
- (Forthcoming) “Keeping Time: Media, Music, and Black Temporality in Stan Douglas’s Early Work.” Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism
- (Forthcoming) “Michel Foucault’s Aesthetic-Ethical Subject: From the Divided to the Beautiful.” Philosophy, Politics and Critique
- (Forthcoming) “Dafne Phono: Nour Mobarak’s Posthuman Opera.” The Handbook of Ecofeminist Drama: Theatre, Performance, and Ecological Future
- “‘Air become Spirit’: Joan Jonas’s Elemental Media.” TDR: The Drama Review 70, no. 3 (Fall 2026) (Winner, 2025 TDR Student Essay Contest)
- “Plastic Flesh and the Biological Oeuvre.” October 191 (Winter 2025)
- “Unsound Phenomenologies: Harrison, Schaeffer and the sound object.” Organised Sound 20, no. 3 (2015)
Appointed to the Faculty
2026Educational Background
Ph.D., Yale University
M.A., Kingston University, U.K.
B.A./B.Mus., Oberlin College and Conservatory
