Ginger Nolan is a 2011 International Dissertation Research Fellowship recipient and a graduate student at Columbia University. In this Research Snapshot, she examines how twentieth-century architects and systems-designers in Europe and the U.S. attempted to translate theories of the ‘savage mind’ into a modern science of creativity. The Research Snapshots series is an initiative aimed at highlighting important and innovative research by SSRC fellows who are currently conducting or who have recently returned from doing international research.
Ginger Nolan
Ginger Nolan is a PhD candidate in architecture history and theory at Columbia University, where she is also involved in the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Her dissertation, “‘Savage Mind’ / Savage Machine: The Invention of the Media Arts and Sciences, 1870–1985,” examines the historical construction of “media arts,” proposing that an imagined, originary intelligence has been instrumental to the development of new technological systems for design. She has conducted archival research in Europe and the United States throughout the past year. Her dissertation work has been supported by the SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Deutsche Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is currently a Mellon Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences at Columbia University.