Charlotte Kent, PhD

I bring interdisciplinary approaches to my analyses of contemporary art and cultural artifacts, through my background in aesthetics, narrative theory, the history of ideas, deconstruction, and cultural studies, as well as my ongoing interest in science and technology studies. Digital art has a cultural history, but one too often limited to a near past, situated as derivative of a ubiquitous now. History broadens reflections and contextualizes current concerns. 

As a visual culture theorist, my previous work on ekphrasis, particularly the narrative structures available to the discourse of art, shifted to examine how practices of looking inform expectations around cultural artifacts, particularly as they complicate engagement with digital art.

My research continues to engage the absurd as it presents in contemporary art with recent magazine and journal articles examining how the absurd is a tactic for dismantling hegemonic structures. An edited collection produced with Katherine Guinness is forthcoming from Intellect Books: Contemporary Absurdities, Existential Crises, and Visual Art.

Personal bio:

Raised abroad, learning and forgetting languages but making and keeping friends, Charlotte Kent then moved to NYC, which has been her on-and-off home ever since. She was Interim Director of the Andreeva Portrait Academy in Santa Fe, NM, before becoming the Managing Editor and Education Director for Ethis Communications, a publishing company focused on eyecare in New York City. This unusual background in science and academic art provoked questions on the valuation of art that led to her initial inquiry on why some forms of writing, and not others, substantiate the field of art history, and continues in her interest on the current and historical intersection of art and technology.

Charlotte Kent, PhD. is Associate Professor of Visual Culture at Montclair State University and an arts writer. She has contributed to numerous magazines and academic journals, and speaks internationally. She is an Editor at Large for Brooklyn Rail and co-editor with Katherine Guinness of Contemporary Absurdities, Existential Crises, and Visual Art (Intellect Books, forthcoming).

View my CV

• PhD., The Graduate Center, City University of New York

• M.A., The Graduate Center, City University of New York

• The Writer’s Institute

• B.A., St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM

• Phillips Academy, Andover

For speaking or writing engagements, contact charlotte@ckent.art