INSTITUTE FOR DOCTORAL STUDIES
IN THE VISUAL ARTS
SILVIA MAZZINI, a philosopher and theatre author, works on the intersection of Aesthetics and Political Philosophy. She published on Arts and Politics in Pasolini, Bloch and Vattimo, on tragic and comic thought and community theatre; currently she is writing on the Philosophy of Poverty. Before joining IDSVA, she was research fellow at the Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry and worked as Assistant Professor at the Humboldt University (where she also obtained her PhD) and at the Berlin University of the Arts. She tought History of late-modern Continental Philosophy at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands).
MOLLY DAVIS has been working at IDSVA since 2014. Prior to IDSVA, she lived and worked in New York City. Molly has her BA in Studio Art from Gettysburg College and a Master's in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute.
AMY CURTIS has been working in the administration of IDSVA since its founding in 2006. Prior to that, she worked as a fashion designer. She ran her own custom design studio for seven years, designing and producing couture wedding dresses.
SIMONETTA MORO is a visual artist and scholar with a focus on painting, drawing and mapping practices. Her work has been exhibited internationally; publications include Mapping Paradigms in Modern and Contemporary Art: Poetic Cartography (Routledge, 2021) and The Vattimo Dictionary (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Moro holds a PhD in Fine Arts, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK; an MA in European Fine Arts, Winchester School of Art, UK; and a BFA in Painting, Accademia di Belle Arti, Bologna, Italy. Born in Italy, she currently lives between New York City and northern Italy.
GEORGE SMITH founded the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in 2006. IDSVA is the first school in the world to offer a PhD in philosophy especially designed for visual artists, curators, and creative scholars. Professor Smith serves on the IDSVA Core Faculty and writes on literature, the visual arts, visual culture, psychoanalytic theory, and philosophy of education. He is the author of The Artist-Philosopher and New Philosophy (Routledge 2018) and The Artist-Philosopher and Poetic Hermeneutics (Routledge 2021.)