Rate My Professor Kirsten Strom

Kirsten Strom is Professor of Art History and Area Co-Coordinator for Art History in the Department of Visual & Media Arts at Grand Valley State University. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Art from the University of Iowa (1999), an M.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a B.A. in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1993). Her career at GVSU began in 2000 as Assistant Professor, advancing to Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor thereafter. Previous appointments include Visiting Instructor at GVSU (1998-2000), Temporary Assistant Professor at Iowa State University (1998), and various teaching assistant and instructor roles at the University of Iowa (1995-1998) and School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994-1995).

Strom's primary research focus is Surrealism. She authored the book Making History: Surrealism and the Invention of a Political Culture (University Press of America, 2002) and articles such as “Avant-Garde of What?: Surrealism Reconceived as Political Culture” (The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2004), “Sometimes I Spit for Pleasure on My Mother’s Portrait: On the Strategic Uses of Inflammatory Rhetoric in Surrealism” (The Invention of Politics in the European Avant-Garde, 2006), and “Reinventing Art and Ethnography: Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, and Maya Deren in Haiti” (Review of International American Studies, 2009/2010). She has received multiple Scholarly Travel Grants from GVSU (2000-2009), a Research and Development Grant (2001), and scholarships including the Margaret and Robert Alexander Scholarship (1998). Strom teaches Art History courses including Survey I and II, Surrealism, Art Since 1945, Asian Art, 19th-Century Art, and Capstone. She has presented extensively at conferences like the College Art Association and Modernist Studies Association, chaired panels, and given public lectures at the Grand Rapids Art Museum and Meijer Sculpture Garden on topics such as Surrealism, modern art, and Japonisme. In addition to scholarship, she practices studio art in photography and collage, with solo exhibitions like “Anagram Project” at Calder Art Center, GVSU (2003), and recently displayed surrealism-inspired dresses at the International Society for the Study of Surrealism conference in Paris.