faculty profile

Nicole Archer
Program Chair
History and Theory of Contemporary Art
narcher@sfai.edu

Nicole Archer researches contemporary art and material culture, with an emphasis in modern textile and garment histories. She also concentrates on critical and psychoanalytic theory, corporeal feminism, and performance studies. Her dissertation, A Looming Possibility: Towards a Theory of the Textile, considers how critical understandings and uses of textiles can challenge and extend poststructuralist theories of the text. In her teaching, she explores the relations of politics and aesthetics through examinations of style, embodiment, and desire. Archer’s work has appeared in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture and Working for Justice: The L.A. Model for Organizing and Advocacy.

Selected Publications: 
  • Archer, Nicole, Ana Luz Gonzalez, Kimi Lee, Simmi Gandhi, and Delia Herrera. “The Garment Worker Center and the ‘Forever 21’ Campaign.” Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy. Eds. Ruth Milkman, Joshua Bloom and Victor Narro. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2010.
  • Archer, Nicole. “Text(ile)s: How to Fabricate a Body Without Organs.” Textiles: Journal of Cloth and Culture 2.2 (2004): 156-175.
Education: 
  • Currently completing a PhD in the History of Consciousness with a minor in the History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz
  • MA, Cultural History, Goldsmiths College, University of London
  • BA, Art History and Gender Studies, New College of Florida