Over 1,400 illustrations grace the pages of the newest edition of the leading textbook for students of art history, co­authored by Christin Mamiya.

11th Edition of Venerable Art Text Co-Authored by Mamiya

By Kathe Andersen, Hixson-Lied Fine and Performing Arts

For 76 years, Art Through the Ages has been the leading textbook for students in the field of art history. It's the text used by all sections of the two-semester introductory survey classes, Art History 101-102 at the University of Nebraska.

Christin Mamiya, professor of art history, has co-authored the 11th edition of this esteemed art history textbook, which has just recently been published by Harcourt College Publishers.

"It is indicative of the high esteem in which Christin's scholarship is held that she was chosen to rewrite it," said Andrea Bolland, assistant professor of art history. "What the publishers perhaps didn't realize when they asked her is that she is also an award-winning teacher, making her even more qualified to undertake the task of writing such a book."

Mamiya's work included not only writing the chapters, but selecting images and working with photo editors to secure photos/transparencies and permissions, as well as reviewing transparencies for color accuracy, editing four sequential stages of page proofs and providing input on design and production issues. She also provided input for all ancillaries, such as the Instructors' Manual, pronunciation guide, website and slide sets.

"The scope of the text itself is about as comprehensive as you can get," Mamiya said. "Covering art and history from prehistory to the present. The scope of the publication project was even more overwhelming. This book has more illustrations (1,400) and a greater percentage of those in color than any other art history textbook."

Almost 80 years ago, Helen Gardner, a teacher at The School of Art Institute of Chicago, had a vision to provide students and lecturers with a textbook that would introduce them to an artistic legacy spanning the globe. That vision, realized as Art Through the Ages, was published in 1926 and soon became the market leader. The text was written with students in mind-to introduce them to art from the ice age through successive civilizations of the Near East, Europe, the Americas and Asia, to the 20th century.

"This book is one of the most important titles published by Harcourt College Publishers," said Steven Drummond, marketing strategist for Gardner's Art Through the Ages at Harcourt. "We are very proud of its history and very excited about the prospects for the new (11th) edition. The introductory art history marketplace has approximately 250,000 students annually and Art Through the Ages 10th edition was used by about 30 percent of that number. We predict that the new edition will significantly increase that market share."

To introduce the previous 10th edition, the senior acquisitions editor at Harcourt visited various universities in 1995, including UNL, to talk to faculty. Mamiya spoke with her about the text and possible improvements. Mamiya received a call in early 1996 from the editor, who met with her at a conference they were both attending. At that dinner, the editor asked if Mamiya would consider rewriting the text for the 11th edition.

"Needless to say, I was rather taken aback, and it took me awhile to agree to assume this huge responsibility," Mamiya said.

Her work on the project began near the end of 1997 and continued until the 11th edition went to press at the end of May 2000. However, she completed it without the benefit of a leave or research assistants.

"At times I would complete a chapter at 5:30 a.m. and then go straight to campus to prepare for my 8 a.m. class," Mamiya said.

The book has two parts: prehistory through the medieval period and Renaissance to the present. Fred S. Kleiner, professor of art history and archaeology at Boston University, a specialist in Roman art and archaeology, wrote the first half; Mamiya wrote the second half. Richard G. Tansey worked on the 5th through 10th editions, but passed away shortly before work on the 11th edition began. His name remains on the author page for the 11th edition.

"Because this is an introductory survey text, I think one might assume that only general sources need to be consulted to write such a book," Mamiya said. "In fact, the opposite is the case. In order to ensure that the text incorporated the most accurate information and the most up-to-date scholarship, I found myself doing extensive and detailed research in order to distill that research down to a paragraph or two-sometimes a sentence or two. I also relied on my network of scholarly colleagues-I'm especially indebted to my fellow art historians in my department-to answer questions that arose in the process of research."

The book is used by a range of students, from community colleges to Ivy League universities.

"I had to satisfy both traditional and progressive scholars-quite a balancing act," she said.

Considering all the parameters involved in this project, Mamiya is happy with the finished product.

"Given the amount of work that went into this text and the number of people involved in its production, I'm very pleased with the final book," she said. "The design and production teams at Harcourt did a great job. There are, of course, aspects that I think could be improved-passages rewritten, better transparencies obtained-but overall, I think it's a beautiful book, and I'm very proud to have been a part of its publication."

Mamiya is quick to name her next project: "a really long nap!"

"Seriously, perhaps because of my work on this text, I've been approached by another publisher about writing a contemporary art textbook," she said. "However, I'm anxious to revive my research program. In addition to a few articles, I'm working on a book on contemporary photography. Also, in response to requests from museums and scholars, I'm working to have my Pop art book republished in revised form."

Mamiya has been at the University of Nebraska since 1987, currently serving as professor of art history and vice chair of the department of art and art history and adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. In addition to Gardner's Art Through the Ages, she has written Pop Art and Consumer Culture: American Super Market (University of Texas Press, 1992). Her articles include several invited reviews for The Journal of American History, including a review of Meghan Morris's Too Soon, Too Late: History in Popular Culture published last March.

She has lectured extensively, including a presentation of her juried scholarly paper "The Writing of Hawaiian Art History: The Colonization of Knowledge?" at the College Art Association Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada in February 1998.

Mamiya received her A.B. cum laude in art history from Yale University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles.

For more information on Gardner's Art Through the Ages, visit the Harcourt website at http://www. harcourt-international.com/gardner/home.cfm.

Teachers College Institute Works to Find Solutions for Schools

In an innovative approach to helping schools manage the wide range of problems they face today, Teachers College has launched the Teachers College Institute.

Ready to start its second year of operation, the institute draws on the research of faculty in a variety of disciplines within Teachers College and across UNL. The institute's goal is to make immediate use of the knowledge gained in that research, said Harold Keller, who stepped down as chair of educational psychology last year to become the institute's founding director.

"With the Teachers College Institute, when a school identifies a problem, my role is to identify faculty within Teachers College and the university at large who might have expertise in that area that quickly can be brought to bear on the problem," Keller said. "It's a way to move research directly into practice and to get researchers to communicate in alternate ways, not just through scholarly journals."

The institute's umbrella covers various research centers and projects, and working groups within those centers. As one example of the institute's efforts, Keller offered the Center for Effective Educational and Mental Health Services, coordinated by Michael Epstein, William Barkley professor of special education and communication disorders.

"A number of Lincoln schools were enrolling larger numbers of very challenging kids - kids who are from families that are highly mobile, from families that are dysfunctional. Police are being called to the schools to help out," Keller said.

"The question became one of 'can we pull together some school and community agency people and some university people who can address the needs of these very challenging families? Can we create what might be called full-service schools, schools that bring community resources such as social, medical and mental health services into the schools so these families don't have to go to multiple sites'?"

One working group within Epstein's center worked with various state and local agencies to develop grant proposals to submit to private and federal agencies for long-term assistance. Another working group came together to address the more immediate needs.

"The university is setting up practicum students for its school psychology and counseling psychology programs who will be placed in the schools to work with the students and their families; and Community Mental Health reallocated some staff to come to the schools on a regular basis," Keller said. "Not all the needs were met, but we put some pretty good Band-Aids on some problems and developed some plans for much longer-term solutions."

It's the ability to act quickly on a problem and the university's direct involvement in the schools that makes Teachers College Institute unique compared to similar initiatives at other universities around the country, Keller said.

"Teachers College Institute is unique in terms of how we are trying to partner with the school districts," he said. "The problems, the questions are being framed by the schools and we try to bring the expertise of the university to bear on those problems. But the intent is that we will also assume some responsibility for helping to implement solutions.

"If we solve some problems in the Lincoln Public Schools, we will then work to translate the solutions into effective programs in Omaha, in Scottsbluff, wherever they might be needed. That goes beyond what other institutes do at other universities. They tend to primarily publish work and disseminate work. We want to take it to the next step and help implement solutions."

Geologist Loope Scores Publishing Double

By Tom Simons, Public Relations

UNL geologist David Loope had a rare scientific publishing "double" in July.

He was listed as one of three co-authors of a paper published in the July 13 edition of Nature, the prestigious international weekly journal of science, and co-authored an article in the July/August issue of Natural History, the magazine of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

For the study in Nature, Loope contributed samples of desert roses - 25 million-year-old gypsum sand crystals he collected several years ago near Scottsbluff - to a study performed by Huiming Bao, a geochemist at the University of California at San Diego. The crystals contained sulfate (SO4), whose oxygen atoms include an unusual concentration of an isotope of oxygen (oxygen 17) that was previously thought to be only of extraterrestrial origin. The sulfate in Loope's samples are believed to have originated in a large volcanic eruption that dispersed sulfur-rich ash into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, The ash eventually settled to the ground and that enabled Bao and his UCSD colleagues to show for the first time that the oxygen 17 isotope concentrations could also originate on Earth.

"What they found was a useful technique that can be applied to ancient rocks to tell us more about what kind of processes were active in the early atmosphere," Loope said. "A Nebraska mineral has helped to reveal a new tool for understanding ancient atmospheres."

The Natural History article, "Death in the Dunes," was a result of research Loope performed with co-author Lowell Dingus, chief geologist on the ongoing American Museum of Natural History/Mongolian Academy of Sciences joint expedition to the Gobi Desert.

A specialist in windblown sediment, Loope joined the expedition in 1996 and used his knowledge of debris flows caused by rain-soaked sand in the Nebraska Sand Hills to show how similar - but much larger - events in the Gobi 75 million years ago could have trapped large numbers of dinosaurs and other animals, making it the paleontologist's paradise that it is today.

"It was a thrill for me to have that article published," Loope said. "I've been reading Natural History for 30 years and I never thought I'd have anything in it."

With any luck, he may have plenty more to write about in the not-too-distant future. He left Aug. 18 to participate in a month-long expedition to the deserts of western China. The expedition is sponsored by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

"We hope to find dinosaur sites there that are as rich as the ones that have been discovered in Mongolia," Loope said.