Dr. Jennifer McLerran
Jennifer McLerran, PhD
Assistant Professor
Riles 117
(928) 523-5623
Jen.McLerran@nau.edu
Jennifer McLerran is Assistant Professor of Art History at Northern
Arizona University, where she is developing a Museum Studies program.
She holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Washington, an
interdisciplinary master's degree in art and literature from the
University of Colorado, and an M.F.A. in painting from Colorado State
University. Her areas of specialization are twentieth-century Native
American art, museum studies, and feminist theory. She has taught
women's studies and art history courses at Ohio University, writing and
art history courses at the University of Washington, and painting at
Pacific Lutheran University and Colorado State University. She formerly
served as curator of the Kennedy Museum of Art's Edwin L. and Ruth E.
Kennedy Southwest Native American Collection at Ohio University, where
she conducted extensive research and curated exhibitions on Navajo
weaving and Navajo, Hopi and Zuni silverwork and jewelry traditions. Dr. McLerran has also served as a NAGPRA consultant to Yellowstone National Park and conducted NAGRA consultations for the Kennedy Museum of Art,
successfully repatriating sacred and ceremonial objects to the Navajo,
Hopi and Zuni tribes.
Dr. McLerran’s most recent publications include A New Deal
for Native Art: Indian Arts and Federal Policy 1933-1943 (University of
Arizona Press, 2009), a study of Native American art's commodity status
and the indigenous maker's position as colonial subject during the New
Deal era, and Weaving Is Life: Navajo Weavings from the Edwin L. and
Ruth E. Kennedy Southwest Native American Collection (University of
Washington Press, 2007). Other publications include Art Words: A
Glossary of Contemporary Art Theory (co-authored with Thomas Patin) and
Old Age in Myth and Symbol (co-authored with Patrick McKee) and articles in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, The Gerontologist,
American Indian Art, The International Journal of Aging and Human
Development, and Feminist Studies.