Nenette Arroyo
PhD candidate
EmailNenette studies the architecture, devotional art, and ritual objects of the Spanish California missions with an eye to capturing the sensory and performative aspects of religious conversion within a colonial context. Her dissertation aims to situate this period in American history within a global tradition of creating sacred spaces as sites of constructed meanings and negotiated identities. Professor Richard Guy Wilson directs her project.
Her research has been supported by the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures, the Center for Global Inquiry+Innovation, and the Hobby Family Foundation. In the summer of 2015, she was awarded a full scholarship from the Getty Foundation and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to participate in the 5th Visualizing Venice digital humanities workshop, a consortium between Duke University, the Architectural University of Venice, and the University of Padua.
She has authored "Sacred Light: Stained Glass Windows of Southeastern Virginia," a joint commission by the Virginia Arts Festival and the Chrysler Museum of Art. She has written two articles for the White House History journal, "First Lady Helen Taft's Luneta: Recollected in Washington's Potomac Park " and "Of French Windows and Tiffany Glass: History Reflected in St. John's Church and the White House."
Nenette's scholarship in the decorative arts informs her academic work, and her commitment to the digital humanities continues to support her methods.