GSAS: A Lasting Legacy

When Bruni Ridgway, Rhys Carpenter Professor Emeritus of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, passed away in October, she left behind a legacy of scholarship and scholars.

Since 2015, 12 students in Bryn Mawr’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences have received a Bruni Ridgway Curatorial Fellowship to fund hands-on curatorial experience in a variety of museums and in Bryn Mawr’s own Special Collections.

Laurel McLaughlin, Ph.D. ’23, who is now the curator and director of the Collective Futures Fund at Tufts University, received a Ridgway Fellowship during the 2018–19 academic year. Through the fellowship, McLaughlin worked on two projects at Bryn Mawr and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia.  

In 2018, she assisted Carrie Robbins, Bryn Mawr’s curator for art and artifacts, and former Performing Arts Series Director Lisa Kraus, with an artist residency and exhibition entitled, “ear-whispered: Works by Tania El Khoury,” in collaboration with FringeArts.

This presentation of video and performance works comprised the largest debut of El Khoury’s works in the United States to date. After including El Khoury’s work in her dissertation, McLaughlin co-edited an interdisciplinary publication with Robbins,  published by Amherst College Press in 2024,  concerning the live art of El Khoury. In the spring of 2019, McLaughlin did research  for and collaborated on several projects at ICA including I is for Institute, Suki Seokyeong Kang: Black Mat Oriole and Anthony Pearson, Michelle Lopez: Ballast & Barricades and Trevor Shimizu: Performance Artist.

“While Brunilde Ridgway's scholarship focused on archaeology and my work is firmly rooted in postwar art histories and aesthetics,” McLaughlin says. 

“I valued how the fellowship was open to students across the graduate  group to gain professional experience while also providing a stipend that supported my life in Philadelphia during my doctoral  coursework and dissertation writing.” 

Stella Fritzell, a current Ph.D. candidate in  
Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, received the Ridgway Curatorial Fellowship during the 2020–21 academic year.  

“My award was a little unusual, as I held it during the COVID pandemic, and I did not work directly with any collections,” recalls Fritzell. “It did, however, support me while completing the preliminary exams for my Ph.D. candidacy and enabled continued work on a digital scholarship project.”

The digital scholarship project met the “curatorial” element of the award, as it involved (and, as an ongoing project, still involves) work navigating and curating large datasets for the development of an interactive, public-facing map.  

Titled “Mythodikos,” the map is intended to allow an individual to consider mythological figures not just as they are associated with specific texts, authors, and writing traditions, but also as they are connected to various geographical spaces. Fritzell is working on a dissertation that examines local focalizations of so-called “enemy” groups from Greek mythology in the physical memorials of ancient Athens, Argos, and Arcadia.

“Over the past three years,” Fritzell says, “I have  presented this ongoing work at numerous conferences, where I have also witnessed the far-reaching impact that Brunilde Ridgway has had on the field and the reputation that this has bestowed upon Bryn Mawr and members of its graduate community.”