Kaylee Spencer

Professor and Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
member of graduate faculty

Start Year: 2006

Art
Office: 217 Kleinpell Fine Arts
Phone: 715-425-4629

Email: kaylee.spencer@uwrf.edu

Kaylee R. Spencer is Associate Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where she has taught Art History since 2006. She served as Department Chair from 2013 – 2016 and has received awards for distinguished teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences. She offers introductory surveys of art history, along with upper-division courses on pre-Columbian, colonial New World, and contemporary art. Dr. Spencer's research centers on the artistic traditions of ancient Mesoamerica. She has published numerous articles and book chapters focusing on Maya spirituality, art, and iconography. She combines approaches rooted in iconography, archaeology, hieroglyphic analysis, and phenomonology to investigate portraiture in ancient and colonial sculpture. In her recent work, she explores how spatial organizations of architectural programs frame viewing experiences at Maya sites in the Northern Lowlands, a region located in the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, University of Texas, Austin, 2007
• Master of Arts, University of California, Riverside, 2000
• Bachelor of Arts, Gustavus Adolphus College, 1998

Awards/Grants/Commissions

• 2017, (Spring) Sabbatical Award
• 2015, Recipient of Faculty Research Grant
• 2016, Award for Outstanding Faculty Member for Teaching Excellence in the College of Arts and Sciences
• 2014, Recipient of Robert P. Knowles Endowment in International Education Grant
• 2012, Award for Outstanding Faculty Member for Excellence in Advising in the College of Arts and Sciences

Selected Lectures

2017  K. Spencer and M. Werness-Rude, "Maya Architecture in the Northern Lowlands," Vancouver, B.C. The Annual Conference for the Society of American Archaeology (SAA) Mar. 31, 2017.  

• 2016, Activating Architecture: Performance and Experience in the Ancient Maya World, Presented at the Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI, Mar. 9, 2016.
• 2016,M. Werness-Rude and K. Spencer, Architectural Framing in the Northern Maya Lowlands, Presented at the Maya Meetings, Austin Texas. Jan. 16.
• 2015,K. Spencer, Linnea Wren, and Travis Nygard, The Portraits of Tonina and Ocosingo: How Images of Maya Monarchs were Moved to Make Meanings in New Spain, Midwest Art History Society 42nd Annual Meeting. St. Paul, MN, Mar. 26-28.
• 2014,Locating Palenque's Captive Portraits: Space, Spectatorship, and Identity in Classic Maya, A lecture delivered at the Institute of Fine Arts – Veracruz, in Xalapa, Mexico, Oct., 2014.

 

Selected Publications

• Under contract, Wren, L., C. Kristan-Graham, T. Nygard, and K. Spencer (eds.). Landscapes of the Itza: Archaeology and Art History of Chichen Itza and Neighboring Sites. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
• Under contract, Wren, L., K. Spencer, and T. Nygard. To Face or to Flee from the Foe: Women in Warfare at Chichen Itza. In Landscapes of the Itza: Archaeology and Art, eds. L. Wren, C. Kristan-Graham, T. Nygard, and K. Spencer. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
• 2015, Wren, L., T. Nygard, and K. Spencer. Establishing and Translating Maya Spaces at Tonina and Ocosingo: How Indigenous Portraits were Moved, Mutilated, and Made Christian in New Spain. In Memory Traces: Analyzing Sacred Space at Five Mesoamerican Sites, eds. C. Kristan-Graham and L. Amrhein. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
• 2015, Werness-Rude, M., and K. Spencer (eds.) Maya Art, Architecture and Activity: Space and Spatiality. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
• 2015, Spencer, K. Locating Palenque's Captive Portraits: Space, Spectatorship, and Identity in Classic Maya Art, pp. 229 – 270. In Maya Art, Architecture and Activity: Space and Spatiality, eds. M. Werness-Rude and K. Spencer. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Selected Reviews

• Forthcoming, Joint review of Engaging Ancient Maya Sculpture at Piedras Negras, Guatemala, by Megan E. O'Neil and Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City, by Alexander Parmington. caa.reviews (forthcoming).

• 2015, Review of The Complete Codex Zouche-Nuttall: Mixtec Lineage Histories and Political Biographies, by Robert Lloyd Williams. Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 71(1) pp. 115-116.

International Experiences

• University of Wisconsin, J-term Study abroad in Mexico
• University of Wisconsin, Spring-break term Study abroad in Chile