Joan Vastokas

Professor Emerita

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Education

BA, MA (Toronto) PhD (Columbia)

Research Interests

Anthropology of art and architecture and of material culture and technology in general.

Profile

Professor Vastokas started teaching at Trent in 1970, after several years teaching at the University of Toronto and briefly at the University of New Mexico. She also served as Robarts Professor and Chair of Canadian Studies at York University (1989-90). Professor Vastokas retired from Trent in 2003. Her degrees in Art History and Archaeology were earned at the University of Toronto (B.A., M.A.) and at Columbia University (Ph.D.). Her research interests include the anthropology of art and architecture and of material culture and technology in general. Areas of particular interest include the art and architecture of Aboriginal North America, Early Mediaeval Europe, the industrialized West between the 18th and mid 20th centuries, and Baltic folklore and folklife.

Professor Vastokas has been awarded Trent's Distinguished Research Award for her contribution to the Social Sciences. She served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology from 1992 to 2000 and as the Anthropology Graduate Program Director in 2002-2003.

Her publications include several books, The Sacred Art of the Algonkians: A Study of the Peterborough Petroglyphs (with Ron Vastokas) (Peterborough, 1973); From the Four Quarters: Native and European Art in Ontario, 5000 BC to 1867 AD (with Dennis Reid) (Toronto, 1984): Worlds Apart: The Symbolic Landscapes of Tony Urquhart (Windsor, 1988); and Beyond the Artifact: Native Art as Performance (Toronto, 1992). Her many articles include "Cognitive Aspects of Northwest Coast Art" in Art in Society, ed.M. Greenhalgh and V. Megaw (London, 1978, pp. 243-259); "Native Art as Art History: Meaning and Time from Unwritten Sources" in the Journal of Canadian Studies (1986/7, Vol. 21, No. 4: 7-36); "Are Artifacts Texts?: Lithuanian Woven Sashes as Social and Cosmic Transactions" in The Socialness of Things: Essays on the Socio-Semiotics of Objects, ed. S.H. Riggins (Berlin/New York, 1994, pp. 337-362); and "History Without Writing: Pictorial Narratives in Native North America" in Gin Das Winan: Documenting Aboriginal History in Ontario, ed. D. Standen and D. McNab (Toronto, 1996, pp. 48-64).