About
Jennifer Gear specializes in the art and architecture of Early Modern Italy with a focus on Venice and the Veneto region. She is interested in the visual culture of wellness and healing. Her recent research on plague epidemics explores the important place of art and architecture in treating disease in the Early Modern world. Her current projects center on plague memorials at Venetian confraternities and disease management outside of urban centers.
Dr. Gear also offers courses in the School of Kinesiology that trace the development of anatomical models representing the human body from the 16th century to the present. Her classes encourage students to engage critically with anatomical teaching tools, to question their appearance of objectivity, and to consider the ways that each model reflects prevailing expectations for how a body should look.
Dr. Gear designed and co-teaches MOVESCI 313, “The Art of Anatomy,” a course that was funded in two consecutive years by grants from the U-M Arts Initiative. This course was featured in the University Record on 2/14/2024 and profiled in a U-M Libraries news story.
Areas of Interest:
- Wellness and the visual arts
- Memory and memorials
- Historiography and periodization
- Villa culture and the built environment
Articles and essays:
“Performing Plague: Antonio Zanchi and the Dynamics of Spectatorship at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice,” Renaissance Studies, v. 32, n. 5 (November 2018), 708–737.
“Domenico Tintoretto and the 1630–31 Plague,” in Art, Faith, and Medicine in Tintoretto’s Venice, eds. Gabriele Matino and Cynthia Klestinec (Venice: Marsilio, 2018), 69–74.
“Using Represented Bodies in Renaissance Artworks to Teach Musculoskeletal and Surface Anatomy,” co-authored with M. Melissa Gross and Wendy Sepponen, Anatomical Sciences Education, (12 August 2023).
Courses taught:
HISTART 194.001: Acting on Art in Renaissance Italy
HISTART/MEMS 250.001: Italian Renaissance Art
HISTART 294.003: Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean World
HISTART 394.005/ITALIAN 312.001: The Black Death and Beyond
HISTART 393.004: Venice: Timeless City, 697–1797
HISTART 393.005/ITALIAN 317.001: Imaginary Worlds in Renaissance Italy (ULWR)
MOVESCI 313.001: The Art of Anatomy
KINESLGY 302.009: Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy
