Professor of Art History

Meghen Jones

Art History

(607) 871-2413

[email protected]

Harder Hall, 285

Office Hours: Th 3:00-4:00 and by appointment

My Website

Education

PhD, History of Art & Architecture, Boston University
MA, Ceramics Craft Design, Musashino Art University
BA, Japanese Studies and Fine Arts, Earlham College

Biography

Meghen Jones is Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design. She teaches introductory courses on material culture and Buddhist arts; upper-level undergraduate courses on ceramics history, design history, and East Asian visual and material culture; and the graduate seminar History of Ceramic Art, Craft, and Design: Global Flows. Her teaching emphasizes the direct study of objects, and she has led student programs to museums and collections in the US, Canada, and Japan.

Jones graduated in 1993 with a dual major BA in Japanese Studies and Fine Arts from Earlham College in Indiana, followed by further language training at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies and completion of an MA in Ceramic Craft Design at Musashino Art University, Tokyo (1997). After a period of creating and teaching ceramics, working for private art collectors, directing a university art gallery, and instructing art history courses, she earned an MA and PhD in Art and Architectural History from Boston University (2014), conducting her dissertation research at the Crafts Gallery of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Prior to Alfred, she was Teaching Fellow in Japanese Studies at Earlham College (2011–13), and a Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich, U.K. (2013–14).

Her research and publications focus on Japanese art and design 1868 to today; global flows of ceramic art and design; modernisms; and craft theory. She is particularly interested in modern ceramics and materiality, as well as issues surrounding cultural identities, cultural adaptations, and US-Japan relations after World War II. Recent peer-reviewed publications include the article "Mingei" in Oxford Bibliographies in Art History; the chapter “National Treasure Tea Bowls as Cultural Icons in Modern Japan” in The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons (University of Amsterdam Press); and the book Ceramics and Modernity in Japan (Routledge), co-edited with Louise Allison Cort. Her current works in progress are editing the multi-author exhibition catalogue Path of the Teabowl, to be published by the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum and documenting the exhibition there she curated, and co-editing with Morgan Pitelka, Andrew Maske, and Seung Yeon Sang the multi-author volume A Global History of Ceramics in Japan to be published by Routledge.

Her lectures on Japanese ceramics and related topics have been hosted at museums including the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as universities including the University of Cambridge, University of London, University of Southern California, and University of Michigan.

Jones’s translations from Japanese to English have appeared in projects such as the Google Cultural Institute’s Made in Japan and a 2016 book on the ceramist Kawai Kanjirō, as well as live translations for ceramic artists presenting in the United States.

Grant and fellowship support for her research has been provided by the Japan Foundation, the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts & Cultures, the Fulbright Foundation, the Korea Foundation, the Japanese Ministry of Education, and others.

Jones's administrative leadership experience includes co-chairing the university-wide Middle States Commission on Higher Education Re-accreditation Self-Study (2021–24), serving as Art History division chair (8/2019–12/2020), Director of Global Studies (2018–20), and co-chairing the Online Faculty Development Task Force (summer 2020). She is currently coordinator and advisor for the new minor in Museum and Gallery Practices.