Christine Bianco, PhD
photo of Christine

I am currently seeking part-time work teaching/lecturing.


I can teach courses in art history, American studies, visual culture, and critical media studies. 

My main teaching experience is at universities, but I am also interested in opportunities at colleges, schools, and adult education programs.

Based in Colchester, Essex, I can travel to London and throughout East Anglia.  


Teaching Philosophy


My own experience as an undergraduate student at a small liberal arts college has greatly influenced my teaching philosophy and methods.  My courses are well structured, but my nonhierarchical, collective teaching style emphasizes student participation and debate.   I frame course content so that students develop an increased sense of the role of culture in world events, heightened critical thinking abilities, and greater understanding of points of view different from their own.


Courses Taught


Becoming Modern: European Art from Futurism to Surrealism, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
The Popularization of Art in 1950s America, SUNY-Binghamton, New York, USA
Pop Art/Pop Culture, SUNY-Binghamton, New York, USA
American Visual Culture of the 1950s, SUNY-Binghamton, New York, USA

Teaching Assistant for eleven art history survey courses at SUNY-Binghamton and the University of Florida


Selected Special Topic Courses I Have Designed


Highbrow, Middlebrow, Lowbrow: Cultural Hierarchies in 1950s America
After World War II, 80% of Americans identified themselves as middle class, and indeed two-thirds of households were considered to earn a middle income.  At this time, cultural markers grew in importance as a way to stratify the population and identify different groups.  In this course we will examine examples of art, music, books, magazines, films, television programs, and fashions and problematize the identities these items came to represent.

American Visual Culture of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s
These (four separate) courses consider paintings, print journalism, advertisements, films, architecture/design, and other forms of avant-garde and popular culture from each decade in the context of major themes and issues of the time.

Second-Wave Feminism in the American Press

A history of feminist movements and how they have been reported to the American public c. 1960-1990

Modern Art and the Public
This course considers fundamental questions such as “What is art?” and “What is the purpose of art?” and a number of art issues that the public regularly encounters today, including funding, censorship, public art, political art, museums and exhibition practices, and the art market.

Modernism v. Consumerism: Mid-Twentieth Century Art in America
Realist art of the 1930s endeavored to be populist. The potential for this art to be exploited led to the elitism of high modernism after WWII, yet even Abstract Expressionism was popularized in the mass media. Subsequently, the 1960s saw reactions to this consumerisation of culture in the content and promotional strategies of Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and other trends. This module explores the complex relationship between modernism, populism, and mass culture at mid-century.

Photography in America since 1930

A combined history of art photography, photojournalism, and amateur photography

Abstract Expressionism and After
This course explores the Abstract Expressionist painting that dominated mid-twentieth-century art and various styles from the 1960s through today that were inspired by elements of this art such as non-representational abstraction, expressionist gesture, political uses of art, and process and performance.

Image/Power

From portraits of monarchs to photojournalism appropriated for political protest posters to corporate advertisements, images have throughout history and continue today to be mobilized by political and economic entities to consolidate and increase their power in society. This introductory course presents a variety of artworks and other images and considers how each was used to empower its owners.


Standard Art History Courses I Can Teach


Survey of Art History
The Age of Avant-Gardes: An Institutional History of Modern Art (Survey of Modern Art)
Responses to Modernity: Late Nineteenth-Century Art in Europe
Manifesto Mania: Early Twentieth-Century Art in Europe
Pop and Anti-Pop: Mid-Twentieth-Century Art in Europe and America
The Personal is Political: Late Twentieth-Century Art in Europe and America
Modern Art in America
Contemporary Art and Theory
History of Photography
Women and Art
American Art
Abstract Expressionism
Pop Art
Dada and Surrealism
French Impressionism
Theory and Methods


Teaching Awards & Certificates


SUNY-Binghamton Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2004

University of Florida Graduate Teaching Assistant Training Program Certificate, 1999


Contact Information


email: christine@christinebianco.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn