Fields of Interest

Diana McDonald has two primary geographic fields of interest: the art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East, and that of Ancient America — the Pre-Columbian world. She is particularly interested in animal iconography and aspects of evolutionary psychology that may help explain the origin of art and symbolic images. She has been focusing on the history of the horse and its role in Ancient Near Eastern art and the Mediterranean region, the lion as associated with ancient Near Eastern divinities, and animal symbolism in the art of Mesoamerica and the Andean realm. Dr. McDonald has written, lectured, and given interviews about the looting of museums and archaeological sites.

Teaching

Diana McDonald teaches FA207: The Ruins of Ancient America. She has also taught FA211: Art of the Ancient Mediterranean, which has been renamed FA 204: The Roots of Civilization: Ancient Near Eastern and Aegean Art. Dr. McDonald has taught at Boston College since 1997, and also lectures frequently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, including organizing and delivering semester course series covering Egypt, Nubia, the Ancient Near East and Ancient American Art.

Profile

Dr. McDonald has worked in museums including the Metropolitan Museum, NY; the National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta (as a Henry Luce Scholar); the Ministry of Culture, Warsaw, Poland; and as a curator for the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, NY; she previously taught art history at Columbia University. She also has lectured at venues including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta; and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland. In 2005 she led a Massachusetts College of Art group on a tour through Brazil. She organized the itinerary, accompanied, and was lecturer for the course "Art and Culture of Brazil.” She was a narrator on the audioguide for the Boston exhibition of Art and Empire: Treasures of Assyria in the British Museum in 2008 and the voice of the podcast for children.

Representative Publications

• In press: "Aphrodite's Ancestors: Ancient Near Eastern Goddesses of Love," in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, catalogue, Aphrodite and the Gods of Love, (2011 exhibition)
• The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, ed. by Milbry Polk and Angela Schuster, Harry Abrams, NY (2005), contributed nine essays.
• "The Serpent as Healer: Theriac and Ancient Near Eastern Pottery," in Source: Notes in the History of Art; Vol XIII, No. 4, Summer (1994).
• Crosscurrents: The Art of the Ancient Mediterranean: Department of Education, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1994).
• Ancient Iranian Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, preface for exhibition booklet (1987).

Exhibitions

• Currently: researching and creating object list for an exhibition on The Horse in the Ancient World.
• Curator, Ancient Iranian Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections; Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, 1987-88.
• Mounted exhibitions: Art of the Andes: Pre-Columbian Sculptured and Painted Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Memphis, 1986.
• Art of Costa Rica: Pre-Columbian Painted and Sculpted Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Edinburgh 1985, Duke University 1985-86, Cedar Rapids 1986.
• Collaborator, Animals, Monsters and Demons in the Ancient Near East, Morgan
  Library, NY, 1983.