Visiting Artist: Mary-Louise Totton

November 12, 2009
Richmond Center for Visual Arts, room 2008
5:30 p.m.

Mary-Louise Totton has been an assistant professor of Asian and Non-Western art history in The School of Art at Western Michigan University since 2004. She holds a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian Art History and a M.A. in South and Southeast Asian Studies from The University of Michigan. She received a B.F.A. from Wayne State University. Her research interests are Hindu Javanese art and architectural ornamentation, textile and personal adornment arts, and visual culture development via oceanic contacts. She is also the Director of the Arts in Java Program.

Professor Totton has been the recipient of several fellowships including a Fulbright Fellowship (Indonesia), a Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, a Research Fellowship in Southeast Asian Art History, and a Foreign Language and Asian Studies Fellowship (UM). She has also been awarded numerous grants for travel and research including a United States-Indonesian Society Fieldwork Grant, Faculty Research and Creative Activities (WMU), Lister Foundation Research Grants (Europe and Indonesia), and a Diether Haenicke Institute for Global Education grant for International Faculty Development.

Dr. Totton's publications include Wearing Wealth and Styling Identity: Tapis from Lampung, South Sumatra, Indonesia (2009), "Cosmopolitan Tastes and Indigenous Designs: Virtual Cloth in a Javanese Candi," in Textiles in Indian Ocean Societies, Dr. Ruth Barnes, ed. (2005) and "Narrating Animals on the Screen of the World," Art Bulletin (March, 2003). She is currently working on an essay for the Indonesian-Malay Studies Journal titled "Sacred Pangolins & Mysterious Cuttlefish: Memories and Significance in Insular Southeast Asia " and also a book manuscript, tentatively titled Linked to Last: Art, Spirituality, and Network Thinking in the Ninth-century Temple Complex of Loro Jonggrang, Prambanan, Java.

She has chaired panels and presented papers in professional conferences and seminars around the world. In addition, Dr. Totton has also curated several exhibitions, including "Court, Village, and Monastery: 120 South Asian Paintings from the Permanent Collections," at the Detroit Institute of Arts. She is an active member of The American Council for Southern Asian Art, The Association for Asian Studies, The College Art Association, Textile Society of America, and The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies.