Scholars@Duke

Alexandra Masgras is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Art History. Under the supervision of Professor Paul Jaskot, Alexandra is researching the relationship between architecture, fascism, and public health in interwar Romania. Her dissertation proposes a more nuanced understanding of how the state instrumentalized architecture in order to enforce public health standards, along with normative conceptions of productivity, reproduction, gender roles, and ability. Furthermore, her research foregrounds Romania’s increasingly racialized public health agenda, responding to the state's progressive turn towards fascism and closer ties to Nazi Germany. In line with her dissertation, Alexandra's broader research interests include the relationship between architecture and politics, as well as the interplay between architectural and medical discourses in the twentieth century. 

Alexandra received a first-class honors degree in Art History from the University of Glasgow, Scotland in 2018.