Niall Atkinson
Contact Information
260 Cochrane Woods Art Center
5540 South Greenwood Ave
773.702.0270
nsatkinson@uchicago.edu
Ph.D. Cornell University - History of Architecture and Urbanism
Situated primarily in Italy, Atkinson's current scholarship considers the social dimensions of architecture through a series of research themes derived from his interest in the historical understanding of urban experience.
- urban soundscapes: the aural dimensions of the early modern city
- the city at night
- the urban sensorium: phenomenology, architecture, and the senses
- urban itineraries: navigating and negotiating urban space
- urban signs: the visual semiotics of the pre-modern city
- the piazza and the body public (in collaboration with the Forchungsgruppe “Piazza e monumento,” Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max Planck Institut)
- storytelling and the art of city-building
Academic Biography
1991 B.F.A., Art History, Université Concordia, Montréal, Québec; 1992 Cours de la langue française, Université de Montpellier III (Paul Valèry), Montpellier, France; 1996 M.A. Art History, York University, Toronto, Canada. Thesis: «The Bewildered Monument: Public Art, Collective Memory, and City Square.» 2000-2001 Sage Graduate Fellow, Cornell University; 2001 Newberry Library Summer Institute in the Italian Archival Sciences - Medieval and Renaissance paleography - Armando Petrucci and Franca Nardelli - Chicago, Illinois; 2002 Manon Michels (Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University) pre-dissertation grant for archival study; 2003, 2004 Latin seminar at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, Canada; 2004-2006 Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellow, KHI – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence, Italy; 2007-2009 research fellow, Piazza e monumento research project under the direction of Prof. Alessandro Nova and Dr. Cornelia Jöchner, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut; 2009 Ph.D., History of Architecture and Urbanism program in the Department of Architecture, College of Architecture, Art and Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York – Dissertation: «Architecture, Anxiety, and Fluid Topographies of Renaissance Florence»; 2009-2010 Lecturer in Art History, School of Art, Texas Christian University.