Eye for Detail: Associate Professor Expands Editing Experience with New Positions

Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD) Associate Professor Dr. Karen Carter recently branched out of the classroom and into editorial roles for two prominent organizations.

In late 2016, Dr. Carter, who teaches in KCAD’s Art History and Masters of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies programs, was tapped to serve as a consulting editor for Adam Mathew Digital, LTD. The U.K.-based company (part of Sage Publishing) works with the world’s leading libraries and academics to curate research and teaching resources for universities, colleges, and libraries.

Dr. Karen Carter

In her role, Dr. Carter organized search terms and categories for a database of historical primary sources titled Trade Catalogs and the American Home, which brings together resources from The Hagley Museum, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library.

“The challenge was to find ways to describe the variety of artifacts in these collections so that the material would be presented consistently,” says Dr. Carter. “The importance of the database is that it offers students and faculty access to primary materials that document the change in everyday life in the United States from 1850 to 1950 due to the expansion of mass-produced consumer products.”

Also in late 2016, Dr. Carter was named the first field editor of design history for caa.reviews, the online, open access publication of the College Art Association (CAA) that reviews books, exhibition, and other projects spanning a variety of areas and periods of art history and visual studies scholarship. The appointment is from 2016-2019.

“Design history is a rapidly growing area of academic publishing, so CAA developed this new position,” Dr. Carter explains. “As a field editor, I commission book reviews from specialists in the field. Since caa.reviews is open access, it is available to anyone interested in the topic and regularly has thousands of visitors per month.”

Dr. Carter’s first assignment was to edit a state-of-the-field essay by Grace Lees-Maffei, a prolific and well-regarded scholar in design history.

“It was an honor to work with Grace,” she says. “This position helps me keep in touch with the latest literature on design history and that, of course, contributes to my teaching at KCAD.”

Dr. Carter’s contributions to caa.reviews will begin appearing on the site in the next few months.  

Learn more about KCAD’s Art History program at kcad.edu/arthistory.

Learn more about KCAD’s Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies program at kcad.edu/mavcs.