Anna is Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A former Director of the Center for Culture, History, and Environment, she is also an affiliate of the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, the Department of Geography, and the Department of Architecture (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). She teaches courses in the history of American art, architecture and material culture.
Anna's research centers on American architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her first book, Building Power: Architecture and the Ideology of Surveillance in Victorian America, was published by the University of Tennessee Press (2008). Her current research examines post 1945 suburban communities. Anna is completing a book entitled Building Paradise: South Florida's Vacation and Retirement Landscape. She has completed another book manuscript provisionally entitled One Builder: Marshall Erdman and the Postwar Building Industry in the U.S. This book seeks to tell the history of the building industry in the second half of the twentieth century through looking at Erdman's work, using the extensive archive of the Erdman family. Anna has received numerous grants and awards for her scholarly research and for projects serving her students and the community at large. She has held a Vilas Associates Research Award (2012-14), which helped her work on One Builder. She will be in residence as a Fellows at the Institute for Research in the Humanities in Fall of 2022 and most recently, she was an NEH fellow at the Hagley Museum and Library (spring 2023). Anna has aggressively pursued funding opportunities for her students -- including Project Assistant positions at the University, VAF Ambassador Awards, and internship opportunities (at Chipstone and elsewhere). In 2018, she received an Orland Ridout Fieldwork Fellowship to support a field school class. Outside of her research and teaching, Anna is committed to public outreach and service. She has served on several local boards, including that of the Montessori Children's House, the Madison West YMCA Advisory Board, and the Southwest Aquatics Team. Anna served three years of the City of Madison's Plan Commission, during which time she contributed to the rewrite of the City's Zoning Code and development of a new Downtown Plan. Anna also served as Chair of the Madison Landmarks Commission. For more information on Anna's background and experience, please see her CV below. CV |