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 maintain his roles at Stony Brook while collaborating with MoMA staff on a new book project focusing on Indigenous color theory and symbolism in contemporary art.
He is part of the third cohort of the MoMA Scholars in Residence program, supported by the Ford Foundation. This cohort also includes Nathalie Joachim, assistant professor of composition at Princeton University, and Saloni Mathur, professor of art history at UCLA. The program invites three acclaimed thinkers to join MoMA 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 scholars and makers who offer 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 members Huey Copeland (University of Pennsylvania), Dylan Robinson (University of British Columbia), Crystal Williams (Rhode Island School of Design), as well as internal members Leah Dickerman (MoMA), Ines Katzenstein (MoMA), and Michelle Kuo (MoMA).