#  Carrie Lambert-Beatty 

Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, and of History of Art and Architecture 

 

 

 



   ![Carrie Lambert-Beatty](/sites/g/files/omnuum5041/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/ves/files/lambert-beatty_bw.png?itok=V88YupSp) 

 



 

 location\_on Sever M-06lambert2 [at] fas.harvard.edu(617) 496-6830 

 



 

Carrie Lambert-Beatty is a contemporary art historian. She is the author of the award-winning book [Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s](/) (MIT Press, 2008) and the essay ["Make Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility,"](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.mitpressjournals.org_toc_octo_-2D_129&d=DwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=R9wfSgsSOv0PpX0wKpSOt6sV8gL0rYjcSHlg5Q2pLsc&m=zdY8D8rJa4DXptPNrp_p7NBc-KKOfWLCeqWovx_1XyU&s=aLY69B89PeBz0zITiw3mRfeRuUNVPQNRxnHeEZtus_g&e=) among other writings. Her current research is on thirty years of fiction presented as fact—parafiction-- in contemporary art, asking: What happens when art works deceive their audiences? What do the experiences artists' trickery teach about contemporary ways of knowing? How can contemporary art help in developing a progressive epistemic set -- one able to counter the culture of post-truth and to resist an epistemic "return to order”?

Lambert-Beatty holds a joint appointment in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies. She teaches classes on topics such as political art from the 1960s to the present, the aesethics of deception, and the changing meaning of "contemporary art." Her teaching stresses attention to the modes of spectatorship invited by artists' formal and technical choices, and to how these forms of experience relate to new media ecologies, the social effects of neoliberalism, ongoing post-colonial reckonings, and the structural politics of gender and race.

She/her/hers

**Carrie Lambert-BeattyProfessor, Harvard University |** [Department of History of Art and Architecture](https://haa.fas.harvard.edu) **|** <a href="">Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies</a> **|** Co-editor, [*October* ](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.mitpressjournals.org_october&d=DwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=R9wfSgsSOv0PpX0wKpSOt6sV8gL0rYjcSHlg5Q2pLsc&m=zdY8D8rJa4DXptPNrp_p7NBc-KKOfWLCeqWovx_1XyU&s=GTUkrdUiJLXICmZJCNe7LPaBjPXnTSambp-f84ESLpg&e=)  
  
Find out about my research, teaching, and policies for students at <http://scholar.harvard.edu/lambert-beatty>.

Schedule an office hours appointment: [Book time with Lambert-Beatty, Carrie](https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/73d1850e16874dc3ab152445aa4ab388@fas.harvard.edu?anonymous&ismsaljsauthenabled&ep=pcard)

Mailing address:

History of Art and Architecture

Sackler Building

485 Broadway

Cambridge, MA 02138

   ![Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s (MIT Press, 2008).](/sites/g/files/omnuum5041/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/ves/files/lambertbeatty.jpg?itok=sYuBrOSS) 

 

Image: Carrie Lambert-Beatty, *Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s* (MIT Press, 2008). Reproduced with permission of MIT Press.



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Curricular Area
    
     [Film and Visual Studies](/area-specialization/film-and-visual-studies)
- ## Role
    
     [Faculty](/people-category/faculty)