Suffolk Reporter

Joseph M. Pierce, associate professor in Stony Brook University’s Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and inaugural director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, has been named one of the 2024-2025 Scholars in Residence at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Pierce, a Cherokee Nation citizen, will continue his roles at Stony Brook while collaborating with MoMA staff on a new book project related to Indigenous color theory and symbolism in contemporary art.

Pierce is among three members of the third cohort of the MoMA Scholars in Residence program, supported by the Ford Foundation. The other scholars include Nathalie Joachim, assistant professor of composition at Princeton University, and Saloni Mathur, professor of art history at UCLA. The program invites three distinguished thinkers for a one-year term to pursue projects that contribute to new understandings of modern and contemporary art.

Pierce is the author of "Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890–1910" (2019) and "Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair" (2025). He co-edited "Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur" (2018) and a 2021 special issue of Gay and Lesbian Studies Quarterly titled “Queer/Cuir Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable.” Alongside SJ Norman (Wiradjuri), he co-curates the performance series Knowledge of Wounds.

The MoMA Scholars in Residence program includes both scholars and makers who provide fresh perspectives on modern and contemporary art history. This residency supports three thought leaders with access to the museum’s collections, archives, library, and dialogue with MoMA staff. The 2024–25 cohort was selected by a review committee comprising external and internal members: Huey Copeland (University of Pennsylvania), Leah Dickerman (MoMA), Ines Katzenstein (MoMA), Michelle Kuo (MoMA), Dylan Robinson (University of British Columbia), and Crystal Williams (Rhode Island School of Design).