Carmenita Higginbotham, Ph.D.

Art historian and dean of VCU’s School of the Arts Carmenita Higginbotham, Ph.D., discusses her unexpected journey to becoming the go-to expert for everything from Edward Hopper to Mickey Mouse.

This episode also features guest Christiana Lafazani, associate dean for faculty affairs and research at VCUarts. 

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About Carmenita Higginbotham
Carmenita Higginbotham is an art historian whose research and scholarship examine 20th century American art, urban art, race and representation, and American popular culture. She has lectured extensively on the history of American art, popular visual culture and art film. She has been a featured scholar and consultant in documentaries and in interviews with PBS, The History Channel, CNN, CNBC and The Washington Post. She has served as a peer referee for Art Bulletin, Art Journal and the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies and has acted in various capacities for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the College Art Association and the Space Between Society (Literature and Culture 1914-45).

Prior to her current role, Higginbotham served as department chair of the University of Virginia Department of Art, and as assistant and associate professor in the departments of Art and American Studies. She has been affiliated faculty for the Carter G. Woodson Center of African American and African Studies since 2005. She received a B.A. in English and Art History from the University of Minnesota; a M.A. in Art History from the University of Massachusetts; and a Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of Michigan.

About Christiana Lafazani
Christiana Lafazani serves as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research at VCUarts. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Interior Design, where she previously held the positions of Department Chair and Graduate Program Director for several years. Since joining the VCUarts faculty in 2003, Lafazani has played a significant role in both departmental leadership and broader academic administration. She was appointed to her current role in the Dean’s Office in 2019.

With a professional and academic career spanning over three decades, Lafazani brings extensive experience to her work as both a practicing designer and academic. Prior to her academic appointment, she held positions in the design industry, including work with an architecture and design firm specializing in corporate interiors, a role as prototype designer for a national electronics retailer, and as a design manager for an office furniture manufacturer.

Her research explores the intersection of professional practice and design pedagogy within the discipline of Interior Design. Specific areas of focus include the integration of emerging technologies into student work while supporting individual artistic expression, and the incorporation of sustainable practices in both design education and professional application. More recently, her scholarship has shifted toward design strategies that support neurodiverse populations, particularly adults with autism spectrum disorder, developed in collaboration with interdisciplinary colleagues across VCU.

Lafazani holds a Master of Fine Arts in Interior Environments from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from James Madison University.

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VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Letão.

For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Episode Transcript

Aaron Anderson (00:00):
You're listening to VCUarts Uncharted.
Hi, I'm Aaron Anderson.

Christiana Lafazani (00:16):
And I'm Christiana Lafazani.

Aaron Anderson (00:18):
And we are here with Dean Carmenita
Higginbotham, Ph.D.
How are you today?

Carmenita Higginbotham (00:22):
I am well.
Thank you so much for havingme.

Aaron Anderson (00:24):
The first question.
Not all people in the artsdescribe what they do as
research.
But what you do is almostclassically research in the
tradition.

Carmenita Higginbotham (00:34):
Very much so.
Very much so.

Aaron Anderson (00:36):
When you're on an airplane and somebody sits
down and says, so what do youdo?
How do you describe what it isyou do?

Carmenita Higginbotham (00:44):
Well, first and
foremost I describe myself as an art historian.

Aaron Anderson (00:45):
Okay.

Carmenita Higginbotham (01:15):
For folks who don't know what that
means, I tell people that I'm ina field where we decide what
goes in the museum.
That's a good way

Aaron Anderson (01:25):
of describing that.
In today's political climate,there are some people who are
anti-academia, anti-humanities,anti-bunch of stuff.
So if they say, who cares aboutthat?
What difference does it make?

Carmenita Higginbotham (01:37):
Well, I think that if we think about all
elements of society andculture, there is an implicit
hierarchy.
Right.
There is a sense that someworks of art, whether it's
paintings or sculpture, whetherit's theater or music, they set
a particular kind of standard asbeing revolutionary, as somehow

(01:59):
transforming and pushing us tothe next plateau of what needs
to and can be created.
You need individuals who studythose trends and eras who then
are able to say, ah, that's themoment.
That's the moment whereeverything changed.
There was a new technology orthere was a new type of
conversation.
That's really critical to beable to identify that.

(02:21):
Art history is, for better orfor worse, the story of winners.
People who some reason changedsomething and through a variety
of circumstances have propelledhow we look, how we interpret.
And other environments, say forrecruiting students and trying

(02:42):
to convince them to be an arthistorian because Because most
children do not spend theirchildhood thinking, when I grow
up, I want to be an arthistorian, either that or a
fairy princess.
That doesn't happen very often.
But in the past, when I'vetalked to parents and students,
I say that art is a living andbreathing thing.
And in order for it to live andto survive, it needs three

(03:06):
things.
It needs someone to collect it,someone to conserve it, and
someone to write about it.
Art historians are the peoplewho That is

Christiana Lafazani (03:18):
pretty great.
So can I follow up on this?
You just said that no childever dreams of becoming an art
historian or parent, maybe,depending on the circumstance.
Can you talk about your way?
How did you find art history asthe thing you wanted to do?

Carmenita Higginbotham (03:36):
I was a student undergraduate and lost.
I knew I wanted to be in thehumanities, always wanted to be
in the humanities.
I was an English major.
I was going to get my MFA.
By the time I was entering myjunior year, I was taking
graduate-level creative writingclasses.
I wanted to go to Iowa.

(03:56):
I had this whole plan workedout.
And I knew that I needed morecredits to graduate.
I went through the catalog.
This is back in the ancientdays where it was a book.

Aaron Anderson (04:10):
Physical thing.

Carmenita Higginbotham (04:10):
It was a physical thing with classes.
So I'm thumbing, flippingthrough at work.
I came across art history andart history had the fewest
number of credits for a secondmajor

Christiana Lafazani (04:22):
that is pretty great

Carmenita Higginbotham (04:23):
so I took an art history class and
then I took another and then itbecame very clear art history
art is like reading a novel apiece of literature it has
syntax it has language it hasrhythm and aesthetic choices
that are being made I was justtransformed I took a summer
school class to fill in thoseextra credits and Next thing you

(04:45):
know, I fell in love with acouple of works of art.
And after graduation, I took ayear working in a job answering
phones at an ad agency.
And I realized I want to go tograd school.
I waited too late.
And so the English programs Iwanted to get into weren't
really happening.
But there was a late arthistory program.

Aaron Anderson (05:06):
This was not the original plan.
No, not at all.
You're dean of a major schoolof the arts.
And art was not really in yourplan A.

Carmenita Higginbotham (05:14):
Art In terms of the visual arts.
Okay.
Literature, yes.
I always knew I wanted tosomehow engage with that.
And getting a PhD, I justwasn't sure.
But I believe in serendipity.
I believe in taking a chance.
And when, let's be honest, whenyou're 20, you can do that when
you're 19.
You get all the time in

Christiana Lafazani (05:34):
the world.

Carmenita Higginbotham (05:34):
You get all the time in the world to
figure it out.
I had a great family who waslike, take the time because you
won't get it once you graduate.

Aaron Anderson (05:41):
Right.
And you said something elseabout fairy princesses.
That's right.
Here's a transition.
So you've been watchingdocumentaries on Edward Hopper
and Mickey Mouse.

Christiana Lafazani (05:49):
That's right.

Carmenita Higginbotham (05:50):
Like, how do you get those

Aaron Anderson (05:51):
together?
Well, how did you become thego-to interview?
Because I've seen a lot ofinterviews with you about Edward
Hopper and about Mickey Mouse.

Carmenita Higginbotham (06:00):
Yes.

Aaron Anderson (06:00):
And those are not two things that I would
normally stick together.

Carmenita Higginbotham (06:03):
No.
Not traditionally.

Aaron Anderson (06:05):
No.
How did you become the go-tointerview?
These are big ones, too.
This is PBS.
This is national.
Yeah, all sorts of stuff.

Carmenita Higginbotham (06:12):
It is.
It's exciting to have.
No, it, again, a lot goes backto my education.
I took, at one point, a Disneyclass as an undergrad.
It was an English class, or itwas art history, one or the
other.
And I had this renowned scholarthere.
It was a huge class, 300students.

(06:33):
I sat in the back of the roomdoing the crossword with the
athletes.
Failed the midterm.
Got a C on the form.
And I was thinking, what kindof person gets to see in Disney?

(07:08):
It's harder to teach than areligion course.
Really?
There is no counter narrativeto Disney.
We are taught when we are youngthat there are other religions
and we need to be respectful andaware that they exist.

Aaron Anderson (07:26):
But Disney's Disney.

Carmenita Higginbotham (07:27):
But Disney is Disney.
And so I would constantly hitthese brick walls with students.
And I was like, I love thischallenge.
I love trying to get them tothink critically about something
with which they interactregularly throughout their whole
lives.
And I see art that way.
as well.
Art comes in and out of ourlives.

Aaron Anderson (07:48):
It's a part of the fabric of life, but it's
such a fabric that you don'teven know that it's there.

Carmenita Higginbotham (07:53):
With Disney, you're a passive sort of
consumer and the ideologicalmessages within everything
related to Disney goesunquestioned.
And that was fun.
And it's nice to have a classwhere everybody knows the texts
when they show up.
So I'm not trying to convincethem to read Othello instead

(08:14):
They've all seen Lion King.
That's right.
I can talk to individuals whoare 80 or 90, and I can talk to

(08:48):
individuals who are 80 or 9.
Oh, wow.
And they all have a connectionto Disney.
So they want to tell you.
So the very first question Iused to ask in class, and I
usually ask individuals, what isyour greatest Disney moment?
It can be your association witha character.
It can be going to the park.

(09:08):
It could be going to one of theESPN sports centers there.
It can be anything.
When I used to teach thissubject, all strangers, 15, 18
students.
Well, at one point, I got to 30or 40.
By the end of 75 minutes, theywere hugging.
They had found community justby that one question.

(09:30):
So I can ask both of you, whatis your greatest Disney moment?

Aaron Anderson (09:36):
Oh, I know this one because I have a daughter.
I have a young daughter wholoved Frozen so much.
When the preview came out andshe stomps her foot and
everything, you know, thatmoment, that's Or when we work
in the children's hospital andif we sing a Disney song, they
will leap sort of forward out oftheir wheelchairs and go,

Christiana Lafazani (09:52):
I knew it.
It's a visceral.
It is a visceral thing.
It's a visceral reaction.
Yeah.
Well, I can tell you I grew upin Greece, as both of you know.
And every Sunday night we hadthe Disney show come on.
So it was cartoons for an hour.
And it was a moment that Iwaited almost a whole week as a

(10:13):
young child.
I have to tell you, I've beenthinking about who has been my
favorite character, and it'sTinkerbell.
And you know why?
Because she has the magic wand,and she does that little
semicircle around the castle.
And, you know, there's fairydust, and there was this sense
of magic for this eight-year-oldall the way across the big pond

(10:38):
that I still think about tothis day.

Aaron Anderson (10:41):
I wish the people listening could watch.
She was just doing She was.
She did the wand.

Carmenita Higginbotham (10:48):
Yes.
Case in point, it'sinternational.
Most folks attach to it at anearly age, which is different
than, I would say, the realm ofhigh culture that we associate
with art history, right?
This is common language throughnarrative, through song,

(11:08):
through memory and childhood.
It's a creation of culture.
And that is incredible.
It changes everything.
What I like about Tinkerbell isshe's spirited.
She is.
She'll push back.
She'll stomp her foot.
Who's your favorite?
I study it so much that itbecomes very difficult to simply
attach to a character.

(11:29):
There's a difference betweenwhat character do you see
yourself as and what characterdo you love.
I love the classic Disneys andeven though sometimes, okay, not
even sometimes, she's soinsipid and I just can't Oh,
okay.
Classic princess.

(11:52):
That is amazing.

Aaron Anderson (11:59):
Right.
And who do you see

Carmenita Higginbotham (12:00):
yourself as?
Oh, yeah.
I love this.
Oh.
I

Aaron Anderson (12:14):
think they should do a version where Mushu
becomes dean of a school of thearts, an internationally ranked
school of the arts.

Carmenita Higginbotham (12:35):
I think that would be the best one ever.
I'm not sure anybody wouldwatch that one.
memories.
How do you intercept and say ifyou're this close to this thing
and you can interrogate it, youare a critical thinker.

Aaron Anderson (12:52):
There's so much there.

Carmenita Higginbotham (12:53):
There's so much there.
And so as a teacher, definitelyDisney.
And then I have a mediapresence with Disney.
So it's not, that's not goingto go away anytime soon.
My research, love to get backto the 1930s and 40s in American
art.
That's the

Aaron Anderson (13:09):
Edward Hopper

Carmenita Higginbotham (13:10):
stuff.
That's the Edward Hopper stuff.
That's the conversations aboutwhite and cultural
constructions.
That's understanding sort offrameworks of representation and
particularly languages that wedon't expect.
So, for example, when you see aflower in a painting, it
usually has some sort ofsymbolic reference in the

(13:31):
history of Western art.
Why can't we do that withpeople?
Why can't we understand whenyou see a woman in a work, it's
not just about, say, feministpolitics or gender politics.
But that's serving a role, asymbol.
And that symbol could betransportation.
We get so locked in withlanguage and art.

(13:54):
We get so locked in saying it'sa flower, so the artist must
love flowers.
That's not the case.
It's so highly symbolic.
And when you attach it topeople, folks put up brick walls
in terms of interpretation.
There's a lot of work to bedone, and particularly in
American art

Aaron Anderson (14:10):
and culture.
And in that period in Americanhistory, why is that moment so
So if you think about you havean

Carmenita Higginbotham (14:19):
economic boom and then a dramatic bust,
you've got pressures coming fromeither side, a country who's
recovering from an isolationistsort of policy but still felt
the effects of the war.
Then you have internal traumasthat lead people to either band

(14:42):
together or push against eachother.
And although historians maydebate it, the thing that truly
got us out of the Depression wasWorld War II.
So you've got this hotbed ofcreativity, of technology, of
movement, of people.
Those are some of the years ofthe black migration.

(15:03):
You've got cities exploding,people moving throughout the
western states and the Midwest.
There's so much happening, andthere's a lot of film.
And that becomes a main vehiclefor transmitting visual
information, including aestheticinformation.
So I love it.
Your article you wrote

Christiana Lafazani (15:25):
about what's missing from Edward
Hopper's Nighthawks painting.

Aaron Anderson (15:29):
Everyone has read this.
I'm sure everyone who'slistening.
I

Christiana Lafazani (15:32):
know it's right there.
They probably have it on theirbedside.
Right up there with Disney.
But you talk about everythingthat's missing from his artwork
in general.
I know that led me to start tolook at faces that he paints.
which is really interestingbecause looking at the painting,
The Nighthawks, you talk abouthow there's absolutely, there
are no words posted anywhere.

(15:53):
There's no street sign.
There are no people outside ofthis establishment.
There's nothing on the wallsother than this light.
And it seems, it almost lookslike a Hollywood studio where

Carmenita Higginbotham (16:05):
people are left over.
Very much so.
There's something sort ofwelcoming about it and idealized
and clean.
It aesthetically Painting-wise,you don't have to work hard as
a viewer to interpret it.
It's not abstract, but thereare abstract qualities.
And no, Hopper was one of thoseartists that everyone knows

(16:27):
about.
Maybe this is like theconnection to Disney.
It is an artist everyone knowsabout.
Most folks, if they've spenttime in museums, can say, wait a
minute, I know about thatNighthawks.

Aaron Anderson (16:39):
Even if they haven't been in a museum, that's
pop culture.

Carmenita Higginbotham (16:42):
That's pop culture.
For sure.
We've had a relationship with abrief one.
Hollywood likes to referencehis works, particularly film
noirs.
The Simpsons have been in thatcafe.
Like, it's that kind of, andmaybe that is the similarity to
Disney, not just the popular,but there is a way in which we
are individually accessing thesepaintings.

(17:02):
And what does it mean when wedo that?
What does that turn us into asviewers?
What does that mean aboutculture?
Because there are moments whenHopper's very popular.
Over the course of your career,your research career, what has
surprised you?
The surprising element.
Well, I'm an Americanist andit's an area of art history that

(17:23):
a lot of folks don't know whatto do with that.
And it doesn't have a longhistory and it's not well
respected in the same waybecause it doesn't have history.
And so it was finding its waywhen I came up.
And I was really surprised bythat because it felt like
there's a lot of wiggle roomthere.
There's a lot to discover.
And that's what I loved aboutit.

(17:43):
There were works of art artiststhat had never been talked
about.
They'd only been cataloged butnot interpreted.
And I liked that intrepidspirit for me.
It was open.
It was a chance for me to findsomething new.
It was supportive of that.
I love that kind of just takethe chance.

Aaron Anderson (18:02):
That's awesome.
Again, I wish the listenerscould see the look on your face
because you do love this.
You're not just sort of sayingthis.

Carmenita Higginbotham (18:08):
No, no.
I'm smiling.
And whenever I had troubles inthe classroom or was uncertain,
I could return to thescholarship and be buoyed.
It's like a home base.
It is.
It was.
And I think to be an arthistorian, you have to have
that.
That's why we pick what wepick.
It's a reflection of ourpersonalities.
You can find a place.
And what's interesting, ifanybody has a chance to sit with

(18:31):
art historians, there's apersonality trait to the field,
the subfield they go into.
Those who go into ItalianRenaissance, they'll become an
Americanist.
They have similarcharacteristics.

Aaron Anderson (18:42):
What are the characteristics of an
Americanist?

Carmenita Higginbo (18:43):
Americanists are, they kind of go rogue.
That is pretty good.
They are so comfortable goingrogue.
Yeah, we'll ask that question.
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it.
Let's just try it.
What's the worst thing thatcould happen?
Only 50 people read my articleas opposed to 150.

Aaron Anderson (19:02):
And you don't have hundreds of years of the
doctrine.

Carmenita Higginbotham (19:05):
Exactly, where you're not carving a
sliver to understand what pencilwork in four Michelangelo
paintings or something that theDutch did in the 16th century.
again, when I was in theclassroom, and we would have

(19:46):
dinner parties or get-togetherswith graduate students.
And the question I would askevery faculty member was, what
work of art would you go to jailfor if you stole it?
And it is never the work intheir own time period.
My favorite work of art in thehistory of art is actually

(20:08):
Agoya.
No one picks their area, butit's the thing.
It's It's the creativeexpression that drew them in.
I would say to young scholars,remember what that work is.
That will be your touchdown asyou move forward.
But there's

Aaron Anderson (20:23):
something deeper in that.

Carmenita Higginbotham (20:24):
There's something that transforms you
and fires all the cylindersabout how to think critically,
that you want to go in thearchive, that you want to be
involved in interpreting andresponding to visual culture.
So that's what I would say.
That and have a thick skin.
You need that.

(20:45):
In the arts and in design, youneed a thick skin.
I think

Aaron Anderson (20:48):
that's actually a good mic drop moment for us.
You know, remember why you gotin this in the first place.

Carmenita Higginbotham (20:52):
Yeah, it is.
It is why we're all here.
And the research, there's somuch still to do.
And that's what I love aboutit.
Well, thank you, DeanHigginbotham.

Christiana Lafazani (21:03):
Yeah.
This has been really fun.
Thank you.

Aaron Anderson (21:13):
VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the
Community Media Center in theInstitute for Contemporary Art.
Music by Felipe Letão.
For more information, visitarts.vcu.edu/research-work.