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Pamela Barrie

Associate Professor, Adjunct

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Bio

A medievalist by training, Pamela Barrie (she/her) has been teaching First Year Seminar and literature courses at the School of the Art Institute for over 40 years. She has also been involved with the Chicago book arts community as a teacher, researcher and maker. As a member of the Green Window Printers she produced limited edition broadsides for the Poetry Center of Chicago, as well as artists’ books and ephemera under her own imprints, Green Window Press and Hellbach’s Press. Examples of her letterpress chapbooks are included in the Joan Flasch collection, the rare book collection of the New York Public Library, and the Wing collection on the history of the book at The Newberry Library.

Publications: “George Clymer’s Philadelphia Eagle: The Political Emblematics of the Columbian Press and Alexander Hamilton’s First Bank,” American Printing History Journal, vol. 35, no. 1 (winter 2025) (cover article); For the Love of Letterpress: A Printing Handbook for Instructors and Students, Cathie Ruggie Saunders and Martha Chipless, 2nd edition, London: Bloomsbury 2019., [Work included]; A Portrait of Ox-bow: Architecture—Art—Artists. Douglas, MI: Judy Bowman Anthrop, 2009. [Work included]; Exquisite Corpse. [Catalogue of group show], essay by Mark Pascale, Chicago: Printworks Gallery, 2000; Artists’ Books Illinois, catalogue of a traveling group show, essay by Barbara Tannenbaum, Chicago: Artists’ Book Works, 1987. Exhibitions: A Bigger Table: 50 Years of the Chicago Poetry Center Thursday, 2024, group show of broadsides made for the Poetry Center from the 1990s to present; Then as Now: Woodland Pattern Anniversary Show, 1980–2022, Frederick Layton Gallery, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, 2022; Retrospective of exhibit of letterpress work with artwork by Diana Barrie, Woodland Pattern Book Center and Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, 2022, in conjunction with re-installation of collaborative 1984 mural. 

Personal Statement

From my many years teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I am familiar with the shifting artistic and academic currents that have shaped both our institutional history and our current moment. Whatever the subject (SF and Fantasy, Norse Eddas and Sagas, Medieval Journeys), my courses include a strong visual component, and I encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to students' research and writing.  

Portfolio

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

More than one science fiction reader has wondered what unicorns have to do with electric sheep, and why they are penned together in the same section of most bookstores. That chimerical label, Science Fiction/Fantasy, tends to break down along the lines of futuristic speculation versus nostalgic escapism, with such writers as Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, and William Gibson on the one side, and E. R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the other. Yet even the darkest dystopia projected by science fiction often has mythic elements, and fantasy's supposed escapism has potent critiques of modernity. A few writers, like Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, and Russell Hoban, have written unclassifiable works, in which myth, technology, religion, and psychology play shifting roles. This course examines the origins, development, and achievements of each genre, and more importantly, the themes and aims that s/f and fantasy may share: the creation of alternate worlds and realities; the exploration of the limits of the human; and the search for meaning in an era of vanished certainties.

Class Number

2150

Credits

3

Description

'Far from being a monoculture, the middle ages were shaped by cross-cultural contacts?from the monks who assimilated the mythologies of their pagan converts into Christian culture, to the merchants who carried new ideas along with their trade goods across vast stretches of central Asia. This course explores a variety of medieval texts that
share the element of movement across borders: adventures in otherworldly realms, missions to distant corners of the globe, and mystical journeys that share remarkably similar experiences of the divine, though from faiths supposedly in conflict. Readings are across ethnicities, religions, and genders, including the lays of Marie de France, the travel memoirs of Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan, and the visionary writings of English anchoress Julian of Norwich and Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. In addition to two shorter essays on the readings, students do independent research of an in-depth paper on an aspect of medieval culture and literature reflecting the focus of the course.'

Class Number

1542

Credits

3