View source for User:Brianh

I am currently Head of Publishing & Design at [http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/ EdLab], where I help create educational exhibitions (i.e., gallery installations and web-based exhibitions) for the [http://library.tc.columbia.edu/ Gottesman Libraries]. I am also the creative director of [http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/1286 After Ed], a recently-launched web channel highlighting developments in the education sector.

I have an Ed.D. in Art and Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. I went to graduate school to take a closer look at how educational practices shape art practices (or, if you like, how educational institutions interact with the artworld). Before that, I was working in film production in Hollywood (only for a year – it turns out filmmaking is really boring most of the time). I worked on a few films as a second assistant director, but my bread and butter was really bad tv. I wrangled weapons in public parks and brought the crew coffees. I was highly competent at this as a freshly minted BA in Studio Art from Dartmouth College.

My main research interest is a particular kind of moral philosophy - virtue ethics - as a description of behavior in educational contexts. I am also, therefore, in perhaps not an unrelated way, interested in art (the arts, art making, art practices, and even the artworld) from an educational perspective. My dissertation, [http://pocketknowledge.tc.columbia.edu/home.php/viewfile/798 The Moral Nature of Artistic Genius] is about the consequences of a hermeneutic conception of artistic genius as one kind of artistic influence.