Cher Knight
Professor, School of Film, Television, and Media Arts
Dr. Cher Krause Knight is professor of art history, focused on modern and contemporary art and architecture, with specializations in public art and museum studies.
She has published two exhibition catalogues for the Michener Museum of Art: An Independent Spirit: The Art and Life of R.A.D. Miller (2009); and Louis Bosa: A Keen Eye and a Kind Heart (2005). Her other publications appear in various sources, including: Art Journal Open; Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research; Journal of American and Comparative Cultures; Visual Resources; American Art Review; Boston Art Review; and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.
Dr. Knight is the co-founder of Public Art Dialogue, an international professional organization. She also co-founded the journal Public Art Dialogue (Routledge / Taylor & Francis), co-edited it through Spring 2017, and now serves on its editorial board. Additionally, Dr. Knight is on the advisory board of the Boston Public Art Triennial. She has served as a memorial/public art research advisor for the Boston Art Commission, Mayor’s Office of Arts + Culture (City of Boston), as well as the public art scholar for the King Memorial (City of Boston with Embrace Boston).
Among her awards, Dr. Knight was honored as Distinguished Alumnus/Scholar by Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2014. She has been twice awarded the Gemmill Research Fellowship at the Michener Museum, Doylestown, PA, and was Emerson College’s 2006-2007 recipient of the Mann Stearns Distinguished Faculty Award.
Courses
- Topics in Art History
- Seminar in Art History
- Introduction to Visual Arts
- History of Modern Art in Europe and North America
- History of Art After World War II
Academic Work
- 2025, Memorials Now, with Senie, H., Wiley Publishing
- 2018, Museums and Public Art? with Senie, H. Cambridge Scholars Publishing; paperback, 2021
- 2016, A Companion to Public Art, with Senie, H. Wiley Blackwell; paperback, 2020
- 2014, Power and Paradise in Walt Disney's World, University Press of Florida; paperback, 2019
- 2008, Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism, Blackwell Publishing
- 2025, “A Private Mouse for Public Art,” in Why the Magic Matters: Discovering Disney as a Laboratory for Learning, Alexis Franzese and Jill Peterfeso, eds., Rowman & Littlefield
- 2024, “Public Art and the Power of Engagement,” with Senie, H. in Visual Arts & Human Flourishing, Selma Holo, ed., Oxford University Press
- 2015, “‘Both Object and Subject’: MoMA’s Burton on Brancusi,” in The Artist as Curator, Celina Jeffery, ed. Intellect