About
Ariel Cohen is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Virginia. Between 2014 and 2016, she earned two Master’s degrees: one in Art History (Columbia University) and one in Modern Jewish Studies (Jewish Theological Seminary of America). She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in history at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ariel also has a background in curatorial work. She was the Curatorial Intern of the Abu Dhabi Project at the Guggenheim Museum, a Humanities Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, UPenn History Department intern for the National Museum of American Jewish History, and a researcher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA).
Ari’s dissertation examines early 20th century collection, donation, and curation of Jewish objects in America. She looks at exhibition spaces such as the Smithsonian, the Jewish Museum in New York, and the Union Museum in Cincinnati to tell a larger story of Jewish self-description and expression in a shifting American democracy.