Sybil F. Joslyn is a fourth-year PhD Candidate at Boston University studying American art and material culture in the long nineteenth century. Grounded in object analysis and interdisciplinarity, her research explores the junction between material and visual culture, the social and economic life of objects, and intercultural exchange in the Atlantic World.
Sybil's dissertation, "Worth Its Salt: Salvage in the Maritime Visual and Material Culture of America's Long Nineteenth Century," examines maritime salvage as object, material, and process to interrogate conceptions of identity, property, and value during the Age of Sail. Through the study of three object assemblages centered around shipwreck paintings, scrimshaw, and ship figureheads, her work demonstrates how conceptions of maritime salvage acted as a driving force in contemporary artistic production, patronage, and collecting. Sybil's project contributes to the growing body of scholarship in the Blue Humanities by challenging and expanding traditional narratives of interpretation and cultural meaning in the maritime world.
Sybil has previously held internships and fellowships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bard Graduate Center, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., and the Winter Antiques Show.
