In this series of “Faculty Spotlight” posts, we celebrate our Center’s faculty members, who achieved much in 2020 despite the many challenges they have faced.
Dr. Robert Edward Gordon is an Assistant Professor in the area of General Studies at the Fred Fox School of Music and Managing Director of the Voices of Culture Forum. He facilitates cross-college interdisciplinary partnerships that includes teaching, course development, grant writing, and scholarly research. Trained as a philosopher and an art historian, his work encompasses a broad range of interests: Eastern art and philosophy, art and economics, freedom and aesthetics, art and poverty, and humanistic geography. With an emphasis on the epistemologies of contemporary life, his writings investigate how the meanings and ideas embedded in the world (artworks, architecture, nature) are experienced in terms of the attitudes, perceptions, and values of the individual.
Dr. Gordon has taught art history and philosophy at various colleges and universities over the last ten years. He has lectured at large corporations and museums, and worked in Chicago as a corporate art consultant and gallery manager. Elements of his research are incorporated in the Japanese American National Museum’s Traveling Exhibition.
Dr. Gordon is presently working with local museums and religious organizations on an exhibition that highlights the importance of Tibetan stupas located throughout the American Southwest. His current book project, Reality is Here: The Appearance of Buddhist Architecture in America, investigates the scriptural foundation for Buddhist architecture and its development in an American setting.
In 2020, Dr. Robert Gordon published articles titled “Binaries, Buddhism, and the Art of Reminders in the Work of Jacob Hashimoto” in Athenaeum Review Vol. 3 and “The Philosophy of Freedom and the History of Art: An Interdisciplinary View” in Philosophies Vol. 5, No. 3. In September, Dr. Gordon published an article titled “Heaven and Earth: Points of Convergence in the Arts and Adam Smith” in Liberty Fund: AdamSmithWorks.org. In July, he was a panelist at the Institute for Humane Studies Discussion Colloquium in Washington, D.C. speaking on the topic of “Liberty, Responsibility and Mental Health.” He also gave a lecture at the University of Arizona in January titled “Poverty, the Spirit, and the History of Art” as part of the Freedom Center Colloquium Series. In 2020, Dr. Gordon was also named Culture Editor for Transcendence Media/Public Broadcasting in Champaign, Illinois.
For more information about Dr. Gordon’s interests and publications, please visit:
https://music.arizona.edu/people/directory/regordo1/