Dr Alyson Lai BA, MA, PhD

• PhD, University of York
• MA, University of York

Dr Lai completed her PhD in History of Art at the University of York in 2025. At York, Dr Lai taught various undergraduate core modules and also served as Associate Editor for the department’s peer-reviewed journal, Aspectus. Between 2022 and 2024, Dr Lai co-convened the Research Forum for German Visual Culture (RFGVC) online seminar series. In 2024, Dr Lai was a Rifkind scholar at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Dr Lai is teaching second- and third-year special subject modules, ‘Art, Architecture, and Design in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna’ and ‘Fashioning Flesh and Technology: Modernism and the Body in Germany, 1918–1933.’ Additionally, Dr Lai contributes to various other BA and MA core modules, including ‘Object and Medium,’ ‘A History of Art in 20 Objects,’ ‘Postgraduate Training Methods,’ and ‘Criticism and Methods.’ Dr Lai is also supervising BA and MA dissertations.

Dr Lai's doctoral thesis examines the relationship between artmaking and temporal experience through the practices of various artists active in modern Germany. Dr Lai has a forthcoming book chapter on the idea of ‘primitive’ time and how this motivated the design and furnishings of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s studio in Dresden.

Dr Lai's wider research interests lie in modern European art history, specifically artistic production from German-speaking Europe, focusing particularly on theories of image- and artmaking.