Joseph Pierce Named Scholar in Residence at the Museum of Modern Art

Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and the inaugural director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative. Photo credit: Sebastián Freire.

Joseph M. Pierce, associate professor in Stony Brook University's Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and inaugural director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, was recently named as one of the 2024-2025 Scholars in Residence at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Pierce, a Cherokee Nation citizen, will continue to serve in his positions at Stony Brook throughout the residence program, but will also be working with MoMA staff on a new book project related to Indigenous color theory and symbolism in contemporary art.

Pierce is one of three members of the third and latest cohort of the MoMA Scholars in Residence program, supported by the Ford Foundation, including Nathalie Joachim, assistant professor of composition at Princeton University, and Saloni Mathur, professor of art history at UCLA. The program invites three acclaimed, inspiring thinkers to join MOMA for a one-year term to pursue projects and research initiatives that contribute to new understandings of modern and contemporary art.

Pierce is the author of Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890-1910 (2019) and Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair (2025). He is co-editor of Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur (2018) and the 2021 special issue of Gay and Lesbian Studies Quarterly, "Queer/Cuir Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable." Along with SJ Norman (Wiradjuri), he is co-curator of the performance series Knowledge of Wounds.

The MoMA Scholars in Residence program includes both scholars and makers who offer fresh perspectives on the history of modern and contemporary art. This unique residency supports the work of three thought leaders with demonstrated records of achievement to pursue research with access to the museum's collections, archives, and library, and in dialogue with MOMA staff. The 2024-25 cohort was selected with the guidance of a review committee comprising external and internal members: Huey Copeland (University of Pennsylvania), Leah Dickerman (MoMA), Ines Katzenstein (MoMA), Michelle Kuo (MoMA), Dylan Robinson (University of British Columbia), and Crystal Williams (Rhode Island School of Design).

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