91Ö±²¥

Siobhan Conaty, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Chair
Art History, School of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Siobhan Conaty teaches a wide variety of courses including Introduction to Art History,ÌýArt and Medicine, Art and Politics of WW2, Irish Art & Rebellion, Women and Art, 19th-Century Art, and Modern Art.

Dr. Conaty’s current research focuses on art history’s transferable skills for medicine and the health sciences. Her articles on this topic have been published in health humanities and medical journals, and she wrote the art history chapter inÌýResearch Methods in Health HumanitiesÌý(Oxford, 2019) – the discipline’s foundational methodologies text. She has received grants and fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the J. Paul Getty Institute, the Kienle Center for Medical Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She holds a number of Health Humanities leadership positions, including steering committees for the Health Humanities Consortium, the Section on Medicine and the Arts at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and she chairs a national committee on Arts and Health Equity. She is the editor of the Historical Perspectives in Art section of theÌýJournal of Humanities in RehabilitationÌý(Emory University), was selected as a Medical Humanities Scholar-in-Residence at Penn State College of Medicine and was recently awarded an NEH Humanities Connections grant to design a health humanities curriculum at La 91Ö±²¥.

Areas of Expertise

  • Art and Medicine
  • Health Humanities
  • Modern Art
  • Gender Issues in Art
  • WW2 Art & Politics
  • Irish Art and History

Education

  • Ph.D., Art History,ÌýCase Western Reserve University
  • M.A., Art History and Criticism, The State University of New York at Stony Brook
  • B.A., Art History, The Catholic University of America

Teaching

  • Introduction to Art History
  • Art & Politics WWII
  • Art & Medicine
  • Irish Art & Rebellion
  • Modern Art
  • Art After 1945
  • Women & Art

Select Publications

Conaty, S., Ike, J. D., Lane, W., Bayerle, H., Logan, R. A., & Parker, R. M. (2024). Understanding Breast Cancer Images in Art History as a Form of Health Communication. Journal of Health Communication, 29(5), 340–346.

Choe, S. Conaty, J. Ha, J. Mack, E.K. Aumann, E. Wasserman, K. McGillen, (2024).What’s in the Shadows? Formal Analysis: Art History Method to Improve Interpretation Skills for Mammography and Chest Radiographs in Resident Education, Academic Radiology, Volume 31, Issue 2, 383-389.

“The Medicine of Art: Disease and the Aesthetic Object in Gilded Age America, by Elizabeth L. Lee. New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts,â€� Book Review,ÌýJournal of Medical Humanities,ÌýJuly 2023.

“How Art History Can Improve Your Care of Patients,â€�ÌýCLOSLER,ÌýJohns Hopkins Medicine,ÌýJune 2021.

“Milestones in the Depiction of Breasts and Breast Cancer in Art History,â€� chapter in Kimberly Myers (ed),ÌýBreast Cancer Inside Out: Bodies, Biographies, and Beliefs,Ìý London, UK, Peter Lang Oxford Press, 2021, 331-367.

“The Value of Art History in a Pandemic: Teaching as a Healing Force,â€�ÌýThe Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation, Emory University School of Medicine, Fall 2020.

“Art History Methods,â€� chapter in Craig Klugman, Erin Lamb (eds),ÌýResearch Methods in Health Humanities. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019, 100 -114 .

“Art of This Century: A Transformative Space for Women,â€�ÌýchapterÌýin Helen Langa, Paula WisotzkiÌý(eds), American Women Artists,ÌýNew York, NY: Routledge Press, 2016, 25-40.

“Matisse: Innovation in the Face of Physical Limitation,â€�ÌýThe Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation, Emory University School of Medicine, Fall 2016.

“Rembrandt’s Anatomical Portraits,â€�ÌýThe Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation, Emory University School of Medicine, Spring 2016.

“Frida Kahlo’s Body: Confronting Trauma in Art,â€�ÌýThe Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation, Emory University School of Medicine, Summer 2015.

Select Presentations

Medicine & the Arts Panelist, Tattoos in Medicine: Transformative Acts of Art, Agency, and Healing Tattoos in Medicine, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, February 28, 2024.

Art History & the Development of Patient Care Skills, Healthcare DEI Lecture Series, DeSales University, October 17, 2023

Frida Kahlo: Confronting Health, Illness, and Trauma in Art, Healthcare DEI Lecture Series, DeSales University, June 27, 2023.

Imaging Illness: Breast Cancer,ÌýÌýSoutheastern College Art Conference (SECAC), Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, October 29, 2022.

Frida Kahlo: Where Art History & Nursing Methods Collide, Center for Global Women’s Health at the School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Oct. 5, 2022.

Breast Disease in Art: A Visual Space to Confront Bias in Health Care, 10th Annual Health Humanities Conference, Co-sponsored by Lehigh University, Hiram College, and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, March 25, 2022.

Art History Methods for Medical Detectives, Invited Speaker, Penn State College of Medicine, February 17, 2021.

Art History’s Critical Role in Pandemic Pedagogy, Crisis and Community: The Role of the Health Humanities, Health Humanities Consortium Annual Conference (virtual), March 25-27, 2021

“Art History Methods for Rehabilitation Medicine,â€� Invited Speaker, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA,Ìý Jan. 27, 2020.

“Kathe Kollwitz, Empathy, and Medical Education,� Invited Speaker, Medical Humanities Program, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey PA, Nov. 5, 2019.

“Transferable Skills: Art History & Radiology,� Invited Speaker, Woodward Center for Faculty Development, Department of Radiology, Penn State Health, Hershey Medical Center, October 29, 2019.

“Intersections of Art Analysis and Medical Diagnosisâ€� Visiting Speaker in Visual Arts and HealthcareÌýDivision of Medical Humanities & Bioethics at the Rochester University School of Medicine.Ìý November 8-9, 2018

“Taming the Trans-disciplinary Health Humanities Creature through Research,� Panel Session, International Health Humanities Consortium, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, April 2018.

“Deep Seeing: The Use of Art History to Develop Clinical Skills,� Invited Speaker, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Arts & Medicine Section, March 28, 2018.

“Medical Detectives at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,� Invited Speaker, Penn State College of Medicine, February 15, 2018.

“A Study in Innovative Pedagogy and Interprofessional Collaboration: Art History & Nursing – 91Ö±²¥,â€� co-presented with Prof. Patricia Dillon (SNHS), 6th International Symposium on Lasallian Research conference: Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus in Minneapolis, Minn., September 2017.