Johnson Publishing Library Reading with Dr. Amy Mooney

Scholars, artists, and cultural workers are invited to read selections from our Johnson Publishing Library as a way to activate the collection. Guests will read from a selection of particular significance to their research, followed by a reflection and discussion.

About the Johnson Publishing Library

The Johnson Publishing Library is a collection of books and periodicals donated by the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC), publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines. The collection includes publications from the 1940's to the present day, and also includes the company's in-house library once used by JPC editors and writers.

About Dr. Amy Mooney

Dr. Amy M. Mooney is an Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Columbia College, Chicago. Her publications include a monograph on Chicago painter Archibald J. Motley, Jr., volume IV of the David C. Driskell series on African American Art (2002) as well as contributions to anthologies and catalogs including Beyond Face: New Perspectives in Portraiture (2018), Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist (2014), Black Is Black Ain’t (2013), and Romare Bearden in the Modernist Tradition (2009). She is a recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Black Metropolis Research Consortium Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship, the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Currently, she is at work on her second book, Portraits of Noteworthy Character, a project that investigates the social function of portraiture. She was the Critical Encounters Fellow for 2011-2012, supporting the development of civic engagement projects such as Potluck: Chicago connecting students with local and global partners including the UK arts activists, motiroti, who share a vision for social change. Along with Neysa Page-Lieberman, she curated the exhibition RISK: Empathy, Art, and Social Practice which considers the reciprocal role that risk and empathy play in work of Chicago’s burgeoning social practice movement. Mooney earned her Ph.D. ('01) in art history at Rutgers University.