Faculty Scholarship
MARY A. PREVO, LECTURER IN FINE ARTS
IN THE SPRING OF 2007, while on leave
from the College, Lecturer in Fine Arts Mary
A. Prevo was a visiting scholar at the University
of Plymouth in England. There she worked on
English vernacular architecture of the early
modern period (15th-17th centuries) in order
to understand better the English building
traditions brought to the eastern seaboard of
the American Colonies. She availed herself of
classes in traditional construction methods at
the School of Architecture and read widely in
the University library.
Prevo also began work on a project that has
long held her interest: the cultural implications
of the depiction of linen cloth in western art.
Tentatively entitled “The Cloth Unfolded,”
this work involves the study of 18th- and 19th-century
still-life painting along with the history
of the production and cleaning of linen in the
context of an emerging urban bourgeoisie.
While abroad, she also photographed
important ancient and medieval sites for
her classes in art history, among which were
the cathedrals of Wells, Exeter, Gloucester,
and Salisbury; the abbeys of Tewkesbury,
Glastonbury, and Malmsbury; prehistoric
sites on Dartmoor and at Stonehenge; and
various sites and museums in London, Dublin,
Provence, and Venice.
In the spring of 2008 Prevo offered a new
course in architectural history, “The American
House,” which grew out of her participation
in a three-week summer seminar in 2004 at
the National Humanities Center in Research
Triangle, North Carolina, on how designed
space shapes culture and vice versa. In this
work Prevo takes up a long-time interest in
American architecture. She will treat the arc
of American architectural history through the
particularly American phenomenon, the single-family
detached house. Students will study
architectural manifestations of domestic ritual
and mark how the changes in houses reflect
changes in culture. The course will include field
work in Farmville and the surrounding area.
During the 2006 Spring Break, Prevo
accompanied the Hampden-Sydney College
Men’s Chorus during the group’s trip to Italy
for several concerts, providing her expertise
during visits to museums and on walking tours
of Rome.
Prevo completed her second three-year
appointment on the Advisory Board of the
College’s Atkinson Museum last spring, and
she is a long-time advocate for public libraries,
currently serving as treasurer of the board of the
Central Virginia Regional Library. She has also
participated in various planning committees for
a new home for the Farmville-Prince Edward
Community Library, which is now entering the
design phase.
Prevo, who has taught at the College since
1998, earned her B.A. at State University
College (SUNY) at New Paltz and her M.A. at
Columbia University.
BEYOND THE Classroom FOR THE Classroom
Hampden-Sydney College Faculty Scholarship 2005-2008
A report by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty
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