Touba Ghadessi Fleming
Assistant Professor of Art History
Office: Watson Fine Arts Building 139
Phone: (508) 286 3591
Email: fleming_touba@wheatonma.edu
Degrees
Ph.D., M.A., Northwestern University
B.A., Trinity University
Main Interests
Monsters in the early-modern period
History of anatomy
Gender definitions and gender ambiguity between 1400 and 1800
Research Interests
My research is primarily an inquiry into the nature of monstrousness and its translation to portraiture in Italian courts of the late Renaissance.
I am also interested in pushing two projects in particular: 1/furthering the exploration of the vexed gender identity of castrati, which resulted in the unresolved tension between their bodies and their social personae 2/analyzing how Catherine de Médicis, Queen of France and Italian woman, constructed her identity, partly, by surrounding herself with monsters that linked her to powerful ruling families in Europe.