Whitney Davis

Whitney Davis
Born	(1958-04-15) April 15, 1958
Nationality	American
Education	Bachelor of Arts (A.B., Harvard College, 1980) Master of Arts (A.M., Harvard University, 1982) Ph.D. (Harvard University, 1985)
Alma mater	Harvard University
Occupation(s)	Art historian, author
Title	Professor of History and Theory of Ancient and Modern Art
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	Art History
Institutions	UC Berkeley

Whitney Davis (born April 15, 1958) is an art historian, writer, and theorist. Davis has been teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, in the art history department since 2001 as the George C. and Helen N. Pardee Professor of History and Theory of Ancient and Modern Art. In addition to an extensive list of publications in the field of Western art history, Davis has made major contributions to the field of queer theory and LGBTQ studies, such as the 1998 essay "'Homosexualism,' Gay and Lesbian Studies, and Queer Theory in Art History."

Career

Early academic career

Whitney Davis attended Harvard College, earning an A.B. in 1980, later attending Harvard University to earn an A.M. in 1982 and Ph.D. in 1985. During this time, Davis held a position as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard from 1983 to 1986, and wrote a dissertation titled The Canonical Tradition in Ancient Egyptian Art.

Early teaching career

Prior to holding a teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley, Davis taught at Northwestern University from 1987 to 2001. During this time, Davis served as the director of the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities from 1995 to 1998, and as the John Evans Professor of Art History from 1998 to 2001.