Kaylee P. Alexander

Art & visual Culture Historian • Copyeditor

Hello, I'm Kaylee.

I believe strongly in the power of the arts and their histories to transform our understanding of the world around us, and am passionate about making art history accessible to a wide audience. As an art historian, writer, editor, and educator with more than a decade of experience working in arts institutions and higher education, I value clear written and oral communication for experts and non-experts alike and am dedicated to interdisciplinary exchange. With a strong background in digital art history methods, I have a unique understanding of database management systems and novel analytical approaches for museums, archives and special collections.

I received my Ph.D. in Art History & Visual Culture from Duke University in 2021. Currently, I am an Assistant Research Data Librarian with the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

A Data-Driven Analysis of Cemeteries and Social Reform in Paris, 1804–1924

Routledge Research in Art History (2024)

This book takes a novel, data-driven approach to the cemeteries of Paris, analysing a largely text-based body of archival material as proxy evidence for visual material that has been lost due to systematic, and legally sanctioned, acts of erasure.

This study represents the first full-length study of vernacular monuments in France and the entrepreneurs who made them. It also provides methodical considerations, at the intersection of the computational and digital humanities for managing survival biases in extant historical evidence, that are applicable beyond the thematic focus of this book. Since extant examples of these more inconspicuous monuments are rare, this project employs both distant and close viewing—analyzing commercial almanacs, work logs, and burial records in aggregates alongside detailed case studies—to compensate for gaps in the material record.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in visual culture, popular culture, digital humanities and French history. Learn more here.

Towards Transdisciplinarity: Current and Future Perspectives on Art Markets Studies / Auf dem Weg zur Transdisziplinarität: Aktuelle und zukünftige Perspektiven auf die Kunstmarktforschung

with Anne-Sophie V. Radermecker | sediment 32 (2023)

The rapid expansion of art markets research since the 2010s has been rooted in an interdisciplinary approach that has resulted in many fruitful collaborations across the humanities, science, and social sciences. Yet, despite recent calls for more cross-disciplinary collaboration, the field remains relatively partitioned. Consequently, scholars often adopt risk-averse behaviors towards appropriating theories, concepts, methods, and data from disciplines that are sometimes distant from art history and the humanities. This division innately complicates academic structures, such as the peer review process, as potential contributions tend to be restricted by the limited pool of scholars who are expected to judge equally the social scientific and art historical aspects of the research. This article is a reflection on the current state of the field, and intends to propose some directions to achieve more advanced scholarship in art markets research. The scientific contribution of this paper is to open a space for discussion to reinforce the legitimacy of art markets studies as a distinct, transdisciplinary discipline by encouraging scholars to acquire and teach the methods necessary for studying this multifaceted subject. Guest article double blind peer-reviewed. Read the full article here.

The Art of Life and Death

The French History Podcast (April 2, 2021)

For Americans in particular, the idea of temporary burial typically comes as a shock. We are accustomed to purchasing burial plots where our remains are intended to rest in perpetuity—or at least that is the myth we’re sold and, of course, there are countless examples of cemetery abandonment and exhumation in the US for a variety of reasons that we won’t get into here. For some reason however we’re not supposed to consider that we might be dug up one day, whereas in France—and many other countries for that matter—the temporary nature of burial is something that comes with the territory so to speak. And burial in France has really never been anything but temporary except in rare cases where either the deceased or the funerary marker has been granted some status as cultural patrimony. Listen to the full episode here.

Upcoming talks

TBD

Current Projects

Beyond Metadata: Visualizing Gaps in Digital Collections

J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah (2023–present)

Data Monuments: Data Visualization and Cultural Memory

University of Utah (2022–present)

In the News

Artificial Intelligence Examined at Digital Humanities Utah Symposium

February 28, 2023

“On February 23 and 24 the Digital Humanities Utah Symposium was held at the Marriott Library, attracting more than 100 scholars from universities across the Intermountain West and beyond. They came to share their research, network and learn about emerging digital humanities tools and practices.” Read the full article here.

Art History Alumna Named 2022 ACLS Emerging Voices Fellow

May 26, 2022

“Kaylee P. Alexander, a Duke Ph.D. graduate in art, art history and visual studies, has been named an Emerging Voices Fellow by the American Council of Learned Societies.” Read the full article here.

Alexander Digs into French Cemetery Data to Explore Life, Death, and Ephemeral Rest

March 16, 2021 | Hailey Stiehl

“For art historians, cemeteries serve as one of the most important ways to not only study the art of a period, but also learn more about the culture, the people, and the customs of a time. The grander and larger tombs of famous individuals, however, often command the most attention from scholars. With the most eye-catching monuments hoarding the scholarly spotlight, Kaylee Alexander took a different approach and set her sights on the invisible.” Read the full article here.