Associate Professor | University of Oklahoma | United States
Dr. Emily C. Burns, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, is an influential scholar in transnational nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art history, known for advancing our understanding of cultural mobility, identity formation, and cross-cultural exchange through visual media. With 97 citations and an estimated h-index of 5, her research record reflects both depth and growing impact. Her research interests focus on the circulation of artists and artworks between the United States, France, and Native American communities; the transatlantic construction and perception of the American West; the role of exhibitions, world’s fairs, and public monuments in shaping cultural identity; and the global dissemination and reinterpretation of Impressionism. She examines how mobility — physical, social, and cultural — influences visual culture, identity politics, and historical memory. Among her major works are the monograph Transnational Frontiers: The American West in France (2018), which reframes Native American and Western imagery in fin-de-siècle France, and as co-editor of Mapping Impressionist Painting in Transnational Contexts (2021), which reexamines Impressionism’s global circulation and transformation. Her research skills include archival and material-culture analysis, visual and cross-cultural interpretation, comparative historical methodology, interdisciplinary synthesis across art history and postcolonial theory, and curatorial-historical writing. Dr. Burns’s work has been supported by major grants from institutions such as the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, reflecting formal awards and honors that recognize her scholarship and contributions to the field. In conclusion, Emily C. Burns stands out as a pioneering historian whose interdisciplinary and transnational approach reshapes narratives of American art, identity, and cultural exchange — offering new perspectives on how art circulates, transforms, and influences collective memory across borders.
Profiles: Google Scholar
Featured Publications
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Burns, E. C. (2018). Transnational Frontiers: The American West in France. University of Oklahoma Press. Citations: 34
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Burns, E. C., & Price, A. M. R. (2021). Mapping Impressionist Painting in Transnational Contexts. Routledge. Citations: 9
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Burns, E. C. (2018). Political contestation in Cyrus Dallin’s American Indian monuments. Archives of American Art Journal, 57(1), 4–21. Citations: 8
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Burns, E. C. (2015). Revising Bohemia: The American artist colony in Paris, 1890–1914. In K. L. (Ed.), Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–1914. Citations: 8
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Burns, E. (2014). The Old World anew: The Atlantic as the liminal site of expectations. In Framing the Ocean, 1700 to the Present: Envisaging the Sea as Social Space. Citations: 8
Dr. Emily C. Burns’s research illuminates the transnational circulation of art, cultural identity, and visual narratives, advancing scholarly understanding of American and European artistic exchanges. Her work contributes to society by preserving and contextualizing historical cultural memory, informs the art history discipline globally, and supports innovations in curatorial practices, museum scholarship, and cross-cultural education.