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Amanda M. Maples

Amanda Maples in the recently reinstalled African Art gallery, Stanford University

Amanda M. Maples is the Curator of African Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art and a Guest Curator at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. She received her PhD in Visual Studies from UC Santa Cruz in 2018.

Ph.D.
Curator of African Art, North Carolina Museum of Art
African visual culture; Museum representations of Africa; Sierra Leone; Urban masquerade; African performative arts; Senegalese gold jewelry; African colonial postcards
Phone: 
Cell: 919-306-9616
Research Interests: 

African visual culture; Urban masquerade; Transatlantic dialogue; Decolonizing museum spaces; Museum representations of Africa and the arts of Africa; Sierra Leone; African performative arts; Senegalese gold jewelry; African colonial postcards

Mailing Address: 

North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Rd
Raleigh, NC 27607

Selected Publications: 

“Gold Jewelry, Women, and Ensemble in Senegal,” Peace, Power and Prestige: African Metalwork, Harn Museum of Art. (forthcoming, 2019)

Good as Gold: Fashioning Senegalese Women. Washington, DC: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. (forthcoming, 2018)

“Unraveling Political and Historical Threads: Youth and Masquerade Mobility in Freetown,” Social Dynamics. (forthcoming, 2018)

“Urban Roots and Rural Routes: Migrating Masquerades of Freetown and Beyond,” Critical Interventions. (forthcoming, 2018)

Ancestors, Cannon Publications, New Hampshire. (contributing author, 2016)

“Re-Inscribing the Museum Text: Examining Fixity and Ambivalence in African Arts Labels,” NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art. (submitted 2017) 

Refined Eye, Passionate Heart: African Art from the Leslie Sacks Collection, Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Skira Publishing. (editor and contributor, 2014)

Transformations: The African Art of Change, Tennessee State Museum. (contributing editor, July 2012)

Accumulating Histories: African Art from the Charles B. Benenson Collection at the Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. (co-author, 2012)

Selected Presentations: 

PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCES, SEMINARS, & SYMPOSIUM PAPERS

“Sanse and Self-Fashioning: Gold Jewelry, Women and Ensemble in Urban Senegal.” ACASA 17th Triennial Symposium on African Art, University of Ghana, Accra, August 8-13, 2017.

“Urban Roots and Rural Routes: Migrating Masquerades of Freetown and Beyond.” Urban Africa-Urban Africans: New Encounters of the Rural and the Urban, 7th European Conference on African Studies, Basel, Switzerland, June 29-July 1, 2017.

“New Directions in the Arts of Africa: City-Life, Youth Masquerades and Decolonizing ‘Tradition.’” New Directions in African and African-American Studies, University of Rochester, invitation only, fully funded, April 19-21, 2017.

“Inclusion/Exclusion: Mobilizing Youth Masquerades from the Margins of Freetown,” Re-Imagining the African City: The Arts and Urban Politics, University of Basel, March 11–12, 2016

“Reinscribing the Museum Text: Examining Fixity and Ambivalence in African Arts Labels,” University of Basel seminar, March 9, 2016.

“Reinscribing the Museum Text: Examining Fixity and Ambivalence in African Arts Labels,” African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, December 2016.

EXHIBITIONS

“Good as Gold: Fashioning Senegalese Women”
National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, October, 24, 2018-September 29, 2019
possibly traveling to Cantor Arts Center, Stanford Univerisity, Palo Alto, CA

“In Dialogue: African Arts”
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, September 2017-ongoing

“Head to Toe: The Language of Plateau Indian Clothing”
High Desert Museum, Bend, OR, January 19-May 18, 2013
traveled to and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, November 2013

“STUFF! Quirky Curiosities and Fascinating Finds”
High Desert Museum, Bend, OR, December 11, 2011-January 2012

“Portraits of India: Markets, Merchants and Artisans"
co-curated with Ira Jacknis
Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, January 26-December 22, 2006.

“Modern Relics”
 Mama Buzz Café, Oakland Art Murmur, Oakland, CA, December, 2006

Teaching Interests: 

History of African art, dismantling binaries that separate contemporary from tradition-based African arts, urban arts, urban masquerade, curatorial practice, history of photography in Africa, representations of non-Western art

Honors and Awards: 
  • Arts Council for the African Studies Association (ACASA) Travel Grant, 2017
  • UCSC Regents Fellowship, 2017
  • UCSC Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence, 2015-2017
  • UCSC Visual Studies Travel Grant, 2014-2017
  • University of Kent Overseas Scholarship, 2003-2004
  • National Society of Collegiate Scholars, 2001
  • Sunshine Lady Foundation Academic Scholarship, 1997-2001
  • Who’s Who in American College Students, 1997-2001
  • Aid Association for Lutherans Academic Scholarship, 1997-2001
  • North Carolina Renaissance Scholar, 1995
  • Tandy Technology Scholar, 1995
  • US Achievement Academy National Award
Education and Training: 
Ph.D. in Visual Studies, UC Santa Cruz
M.A. Visual Anthropology, University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K. (with merit)
B.A. Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (with distinction)