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Paul B. Jaskot

France Family Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Art, Art History & Visual Studies Department, Smith Warehouse, Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708
Art, Art History & Visual Stud, Smith Warehouse, Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Paul Jaskot received his PhD in Art History from Northwestern University. He teaches courses on architectural history, modern architecture and urban planning, and German art with a particular emphasis on National Socialist Germany. In addition to his teaching, Jaskot is also the Co-Director of the Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab (formerly, the Wired! Lab). His scholarly work focuses on the political history of Nazi art and architecture as well as its postwar cultural impact. He is the author of The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor, and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy (2000), The Nazi Perpetrator: Postwar German Art and the Politics of the Right (2012), and The Tyranny of the Object: An Introduction to the Barbarism of Art History (forthcoming 2026). In addition, he was a founding member of the ongoing Holocaust Geography Collaborative exploring the use of GIS and other digital methods to analyze the spatial history of the Holocaust. He contributed co-authored essays to their volume, Geographies of the Holocaust (2014), the first book to address the analysis of Holocaust spaces with GIS. Currently, he is continuing his collaborative work in an NEH-funded analysis of the spaces of the Nazi ghettos of Occupied Europe as well as a solo-research project on the history of the construction industry in Germany, 1914-1945. From 2014-2016, Jaskot was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) and the 2020-2021 Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.). He was also the President of the College Art Association (2008-2010) and the President of the National Committee for the History of Art (2020-2024), the US affiliate to the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA).

Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations


France Family Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies · 2026 - Present Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies · 2017 - Present Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor of German Studies · 2019 - Present German Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Recent News Items


Published March 25, 2026
Duke Honors 38 Distinguished Professors in 2026
Published October 30, 2017
What I'm Working On: Hitler's Role in the Arts

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Recent Scholarly Works


: The Nazi Worker: The Culture of Work and the End of Class

Journal article The Journal of Modern History · December 1, 2025 Full text Cite

HENRI LEFEBVRE AND MARXIST ART HISTORY

Book section · January 1, 2025 Henri Lefebvre—the French philosopher, sometime member of the Communist Party, activist, and scholar—has been one of the most influential leftist theorists of space and the city in the past century. Working explicitly within the Marxist tradition, Lefebvre ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


International Art History Congress (CIHA) 2029 in Mexico City: Planning Grant

ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by J. Paul Getty Trust · 2026 - 2027

Supporting the Arts in Trinity College

Institutional SupportProject Lead · Awarded by Mary Duke Biddle Foundation · 2025 - 2025

Supporting the Arts in Trinity College

Institutional SupportProject Lead · Awarded by Mary Duke Biddle Foundation · 2024 - 2024

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Education


Northwestern University · 1993 Ph.D.