Dr. Kearstin Jacobson

Biography

Kearstin Jacobson is a doctoral candidate in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research addresses the interrelationship of cultic activity and ancient late antique Mediterranean material culture, emphasizing continuity, localization, and the role of memory in navigating the artificial disjunctions common in scholarship. Her doctoral research focuses on the architectural framing of ritual processions across the longue durée of the Roman Empire, examining the evolution of monuments marking processional routes within urban space and early church architecture. Jacobson's work challenges the academic tendency to privilege experiential knowledge of exclusive elite audiences by situating churches as successors to palace architecture. Her doctoral research has benefitted from support such as the Graduate School and College of Fine Arts at UT, the Medieval Studies interdisciplinary cluster, the John R. Coleman Traveling Fellowship from the Archaeological Institute of America, and a research award from the Lemmermann Foundation. Prior to commencing her doctoral studies, she obtained a BA in Art History from Arizona State University and an MA in Art History from Montana State University, where her thesis investigated the development and diffusion of Christological iconography in Late Antiquity. Participation in 'The Art Historical Image in the Digital Age,' a summer program at the American Academy in Rome, was a crucial formative experience that led to the integration of digital technologies in her scholarship. Additionally, Jacobson is a co-creator of 'Blast Casts,' an interactive online exhibition funded in part by Humanities Texas, which explores contemporary issues surrounding collecting, authenticity, and ethnocentric whiteness through three-dimensional photogrammetric models of plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.

Research Interests