Jorgelina Orfila, Ph.D.

Dr. Jorgelina Orfila joined the Art History faculty in Fall 2008. Prior to coming to the US, she earned degrees in art history and museum studies in her country of origin, Argentina. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation Paul Cézanne and the Making of Modern Art History explores the historiography of art history and museography in the interwar period. In 1997-1998 she was a Lampadia Fellow at the Department of European Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. From 2000 on, she had short term contracts to work at the Archives of that institution and before coming to TTU served as the Chester Dale Exhibition Research Fellow. Dr. Orfila has curated numerous exhibitions and published several articles in her areas of special interest: modernism and the history of art history, Paul Cézanne, John Rewald, museography in the Interwar Period, and the use of photographs for the study of modern art.

In 2014, she cofounded together with Dr. Francisco Ortega-Grimaldo, Animationduo, a collective of art scholars committed to a teaching and research project focused on the history and theory of animation and its intersections with modern and contemporary art. The practical component of the collective's undertaking is the Animation-Making Workshops (AMW), which seeks to establish the effectiveness of the animation-making process as a transformational agent in therapeutic, educational, and social contexts through data-driven research. The AMWs method has been applied in partnership with the Burkhart Center for Autism Studies and the Center for Collegiate Recovery Communities, both at TTU, and Bean Elementary School in Lubbock, Texas. They are in the process of developing projects in collaboration with the Lubbock Office of Dispute Resolution's Juvenile Justice Youth program. Since 2020, Animation-Making Workshops is part of the Texas Tech NEA Research Labs, an initiative supported by a federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Drs. Orfila and Ortega coordinate the Undergraduate Certificate in Animation Studies at the School of Art, a unique undertaking that examines animation as a cross-disciplinary field of practice and knowledge that brings together music, theater/performance and the visual arts.

Dr. Orfila's research and teaching fields include: Animation and Social Engagement, Animation History and Theory, Intersections between Animation and Modern and Contemporary Art, The Chester Dale Collection, Modernism and the Historiography of Art History, the Bauhaus, Surrealism, Museography in the Interwar Period, and Critical Theory.

Websites: animationmaking.org, animationgang.com, animationduo.com

Texas Tech Today article: Animation Isn't All Fun and Games - It Might Just Change Your Life!