Special Collections is pleased to announce the recipient of the Coursework Development Grant for the Fall 2024 semester. Supported by the Toulouse Archival Research Program Endowment, the grant was established in 2019 to partner with faculty at UNT to develop assignments for courses that will utilize collections and materials held by Special Collections. Recipients of the grant are awarded $500 in research and professional development funding.

The Fall 2024 winner is:

Dr. Carey Gibbons, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History

Dr. Gibbons is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of North Texas with a specialty in Victorian art and design, as well as the histories of illustration and graphic design. She recently had the opportunity to research Pre-Raphaelite drawing and illustration while undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship at The Morgan Library & Museum from 2021–22. In addition to teaching at other institutions including the Pratt Institute and Belmont University, she has curatorial experience at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library; and the Fisk University Galleries. She is also the Digital Art History Editor for the journal Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide.

The students in her Fall 2024 senior seminar course for undergraduate Art History majors, “Gender and Design, 1850–Today,” will produce a resource guide for UNT librarians, faculty, students, and external researchers tentatively titled, “Exploring Design and Gender through UNT Special Collections.” Each student will contribute a c. 500-word reading of a design (either an object or illustration in a rare book of journal) in Special Collections that foregrounds gender. These interpretive texts will serve as case studies providing a starting point for exploring gender in UNT Special Collections. The project is also designed to help students develop their research skills and hopefully increase their desire to work intimately and critically with rare and archival materials.

Congratulations, Dr. Gibbons!