Miriam Kienle is an Associate Professor of Art History & Visual Studies at the University of Kentucky, specializing in modern and contemporary art. Her passion for contemporary art stems from her belief that the arts materialize cultural shifts that we feel emotionally before knowing them cognitively, thus facilitating necessary discussions about challenging social issues. In particular, Kienle ‘s scholarship focuses on gender, sexuality, new media, and digital culture. On these topics, she has published in journals such as Media-N, Artl@s Bulletin, Panorama, Feminist Studies, and Oxford Art Journal, and has published criticism in NY Arts, Art Papers, and Under Main. For the past several years she has been working on book about the artist, Ray Johnson. This forthcoming publication analyzes his role as an initiator of the international “mail art” movement through the lenses of network theory, LGBTQ+ studies, and histories of interpersonal communication. On the theme of mail art, she also recently curated an exhibition for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art entitled, "Pushing the Envelope".
