School of Art and Art History

Barbara Burlison Mooney's area of specialization encompasses both American architecture and African American art. Her book, Prodigy Houses of Virginia: Architecture and the Native Elite was published by the University of Virginia Press in January 2008. Her scholarly articles include: "The Comfortable Tasty Framed Cottage: An African American Architectural Iconography," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March 2002); "Lincoln's New Salem: Or, The Trigonometric Theorem of Vernacular Restoration," Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture (2004); and "Looking for History's Huts," Winterthur Portfolio (Spring 2004). Her research into issues related to architecture and race can also be found in her book chapters: "Racial Boundaries in a Frontier Town: St. Louis on the Eve of the American Civil War" in Identities in Space: Contested Terrains in the Western City Since 1850 (2001); and "Sunny Spain, or Our Algeria: the Other Colonial Revival," in Recreating the American Past: Essays in the Colonial Revival (2006). Her research has been supported by the Winterthur Museum and the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. Mooney earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was recognized by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa in 2006-2007 with a Collegiate Teaching Award. Mooney serves as Head of the Art History Division in the School of Art and Art History and teaches courses on American architecture, modern and contemporary architecture, and African American art.