Andrea Lepage to Deliver Lecture in Honor of Endowed Professorship Lepage’s talk “Borderlands Arts Pedagogy” will be held on Sept. 28.

By Brian Laubscher
September 14, 2022

Andrea Lepage, professor of art history, will present a public lecture to mark her appointment to the Pamela H. Simpson Endowed Professorship.

Titled “Borderlands Art Pedagogy,” Lepage’s lecture is free to the public and will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 6 p.m. in Northen Auditorium, Leyburn Library.

“Borders are social, political and physical constructions that delineate people, places, and cultures,” said Lepage. “In this talk I focus on a series of pedagogical collaborations with contemporary artists who explore the notion of ‘border’ in their creative practices. The classroom, gallery and workshop experiences that come out of these collaborations bring the students toward understanding and empathy in relation to Mexican American and U.S. Latinx history and culture.”

Lepage received a B.A. in art history from Clark University and went on to earn a M.A. and Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from Brown University. Lepage joined the Washington and Lee faculty in 2008 and has served as the department head for the art and art history department since 2018. She is also a core faculty member of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program

Specializing in visual art produced by U.S. Latina/o/x artists, Lepage’s recent scholarship focuses on community muralism, themes of racialized violence in art history, and the objects of cultural memory. Her research has been supported by institutions that include the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Associated Colleges of the South, Virginia Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lepage collaborates frequently with Clover Archer, director of the Staniar Gallery, to bring emerging and established artists to the university to exhibit their artwork and engage with students. In 2013, the gallery hosted entertainer and collector Cheech Marin and the exhibition “Chicanitas: Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection.”

Lepage and Archer have co-curated an exhibition featuring the work of Esteban Ramón Pérez titled “Distorted Myths,” which opens on Oct. 10 and is free to the public.  The exhibit will be accompanied by a bilingual Spanish and English catalogue.

Lepage has served on numerous university committees throughout her tenure, and she presently serves on the Advisory Committee and the General Education Development Committee, the latter of which she co-chairs.

The Pamela H. Simpson Professorship supports a distinguished undergraduate professor who is an accomplished scholar and exceptional teacher at W&L. Established in 2010 and formally named in 2011, the professorship was established in response to the Lenfest Challenge for Faculty Support and was made possible by a gift of the Orrin H. Ingram Advised Fund of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.  The professorship is named in honor of Simpson, who served on the W&L faculty for 38 years. She was the first female tenure-track professor at the university and the first female professor to receive an endowed chair at W&L.

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