Author: Joseph Manca

Joseph Manca received his Ph. D. from Columbia University in 1986, and since 1989 has taught at Rice University, where he is a Professor of Art History and the Nina J. Cullinan Professor of Art and Art History. His teaching and research focus on early American art and architecture and on European art from 1300 to 1850. His most recent book, George Washington's Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) was awarded the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize for 2014, which is given out by the Foundation for Landscape Studies, and that book was given an honorable mention by the Association of American Publishers in 2012 in the category of Architecture and Urban Planning. Manca's book Subject Matter in Italian Renaissance Art: A Study of Early Sources (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS [Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies]) is in press. Currently in progress is a book on Shaker material culture.

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Arts & Literature Posted on

Champions of Liberty: Phillis Wheatley, Joseph Sewall, and the Old South Church

Poet Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) was a consistent and passionate advocate for liberty in every form: she called for an end to slavery, championed political and religious freedoms, and considered a sinful life to be a kind of servitude. She consistently opposed British infringements on American rights and saw political oppression as a form of […]

by Joseph Manca
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Religion Posted on

The Touro Synagogue: Peter Harrison, George Washington, and Religious Freedom in America

The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island is the only Jewish house of worship that survives from the American colonial period. Built at the threshold of America’s Revolutionary period, it survived the war and the damaging occupation of Newport by British troops. After the war, the congregation returned and the synagogue formed the focal point […]

by Joseph Manca
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People Posted on

The Shakers and the American Revolution

The Shakers reached their heyday in the nineteenth century, when they lived in orderly communities, membership swelled to five thousand believers, and many non-Shakers visited them and praised their modesty, neatness, and productivity. But Shakerism in America began against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War, and during that time the group of celibate and intensely […]

by Joseph Manca