Allison Caplan

Allison Caplan graduated from Tulane’s joint Art History and Latin American Studies program in May 2019. Her dissertation, “Their Flickering Creations: Value, Appearance, Surface, and Animacy in Nahua Precious Art,” supervised by Dr. Elizabeth Boone, examines Nahua aesthetics and conceptions of materiality in multimedia works that combine precious feathers, stones, shell, metals, and other valued materials. Allison’s research interests include Nahuatl linguistics, indigenous aesthetics, materiality, and concepts of value.

Allison received her M.A. in Art History and Latin American Studies from Tulane in 2014 and graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University in 2011 with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Society and a minor in Art History. Allison is currently the Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 2016 to 2018, Allison was the Ittleson Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, D.C. She has also held paid internships at the Getty Research Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.