Art history senior, Josh Cornett, selected to present research at national conference

Josh Cornett, a senior double majoring in art history and accounting, has been selected to present his paper “Shifting Sympathies: Thomas Nast’s Indian Cartoons in Post-Civil War America,” on Thursday, April 6 at the Pop Culture Association 2023 National Conference in San Antonio, Texas.

Cornett is currently the curatorial intern at the Ulrich Museum of Art and is primarily interested in the cultural exchange between indigenous groups and colonizing groups. While performing research in preparation for the Ulrich’s 2022 exhibition “Myths of the West: Narrating Stories of the Land and People through Wichita Art Collections,” Cornett found himself gathering an abundance of research about the German-born American political cartoonist Thomas Nast, as four of his works were displayed in the show, and Cornett went on to construct his paper from this research.

Cornett made the decision to submit his piece to the conference with encouragement from Brittany Lockard, associate professor of art history in the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries.