Connor Smith

Education:
M.A. in European Studies; University of Virginia (2026)
B.A. in Art History and German Studies; University of Virginia (2024)
 

Connor was a graduated student in the European Studies program and a graduate of the Art History and German Studies B.A. programs at UVA. His M.A. thesis engaged the decades-long body of work by contemporary German visual artist Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) dedicated to the Jewish poet and Holocaust survivor Paul Celan (1920–1970). He expanded the current understanding of Kiefer’s work “For Paul Celan” by situating it within a dynamic network of exchange. His research valued Celan’s poetic inventiveness for the ways in which it makes Kiefer’s art possible while also questioning Kiefer’s dedications for their difficult potentials to both commemorate and appropriate Paul Celan. As such, his work in art history and German literature primarily engaged in interdisciplinary conversations about memory’s politics and its affects.