Bert Stabler
Assistant Professor of Art Education
Office
CVA Center For The Visual Arts 203b
Office Hours
By appointment.
Office Phone
Email
Website
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Selected Research
Biography
I spent nearly eighteen years in Chicago as a public school art teacher, art critic, curator, activist, and artist. In graduate school I got involved in anticarceral activist projects, and my dissertation was on a social practice project that helped to close an Illinois supermax prison. I publish on issues of race, disability, and incarceration in relation to education and other institutions.
Current Courses
ART 307.001 Art For Diverse Populations
ART 204.001 Arts Integration in Early Childhood and Elementary Education: Visual Arts focus
ART 499.001 Independent Research For The Master's Thesis
ART 451.001 Special Projects: Art Education
Teaching Interests & Areas
I see teaching as a form of expression (and learning as well). I endorse playful and emergent forms of collaboration, research, and making. I draw on my own experiences as a teacher and my related research interests in forming pedagogy and curriculum.
Research Interests & Areas
My research interests are in contemporary art, race, disability, and incarceration, with a focus on educational institutions.
Ph D Art education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
MA Art education
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
BA English, economics
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
College of Fine Arts Outstanding Researcher Award
ISU Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts
2025
Grants and Contracts
Conceptual Art + Teaching Grant
Bert Stabler.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. December 1 2025 - November 30 2026
Faculty Development Funding
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. March 20 2025 - March 23 2025
Faculty Development Grant
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. October 1 2025 - October 5 2025
Faculty/Staff Research and Travel Funds
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts. October 15 2025 - October 18 2025
Mills Grant
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. October 23 2025 - October 25 2025
Day Camp for Writers 2024: Three Days for Those with Child Care Responsibilities
Bert Stabler.
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. July 7 2024 - July 9 2024
GTC Grant
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. December 2024 - May 2025
Instructional Innovation Grant
Bert Stabler.
Center for Integrated Professional Development. March 2024 - April 2024
Instructional Innovation Grant
Bert Stabler.
Center for Integrated Professional Development. February 2024 - April 2024
Deans Faculty Professional Development and Travel Award
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim College of Fine Art. October 2023 - October 2023
Faculty Development Award
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. October 2023 - 2023
Faculty Instructor Civic Engagement Learning Grant
Bert Stabler.
Center for Civic Engagement. March 2023 - April 2023
Instructional Innovation Grant
Bert Stabler.
Illinois State University. September 2023 - December 2023
Melanie Buffington START Grant
Bert Stabler.
Caucus of Social Theory in Art Education, National Art Education Association. August 2023 - May 2024
University Teaching Grant
Bert Stabler.
Illinois State University. February 2023 - May 2023
Deans Faculty Professional Development and Travel Award
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts. October 2022 - October 2022
Faculty Instructor Civic Engagement Learning Grant
Bert Stabler.
Office of Civic Engagement. January 2022 - April 2022
GTC Faculty Development Grant
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. February 12 2022 - February 20 2022
Gregor Fund
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. March 2022 - April 2022
School of Art Faculty Development Award
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim School of Art. October 2022 - October 2022
University Research Grant
Bert Stabler.
Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts. July 2022 - June 2023
University Teaching Grant
Bert Stabler.
Center for Teaching and Learning Technology. August 15 2022 - December 15 2022
Harold K. Sage Fund Grant
Albert Stabler.
Office of the Provost. August 16 2021 - December 1 2021
Second Round-FY21 Dean’s Faculty Professional Development Award Program
Albert Stabler.
Dean's Office, Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts. February 5 2021 - June 30 2021
Teaching Innovation Award
Albert Stabler.
ISU Center for Teaching and Learning Technology. July 1 2021 - December 1 2021
Performances and Exhibits
Hello... Lee (Non-Binary Worm)
Bert Stabler, Mo Fizdale.
September 2022 - November 2022
Bert Stabler, Mo Fizdale.
September 2022 - November 2022
Untitled
Bert Stabler, Mo Fizdale.
January 2022 - February 2022
Bert Stabler, Mo Fizdale.
January 2022 - February 2022
Book Review
BOOK REVIEW: ART EDUCATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE PLANET: EMBRACING ECOPEDAGOGY IN K-12 CLASSROOMS, JOY BERTLING (2023)
Bert Stabler.
(2025), 21, 171-173, https://doi.org/10.1386/eta_00188_5, International Journal of Education Through Art
Review of Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography by Siobhan Angus
Matthew Day Himley, Bert Stabler.
(2025), 52, 87-92, https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2025.52.2.87, No, Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism
Book, Chapter
Letter to the Queen of Art Education
Bert Stabler.
(2024), Experiments in Art Education: How Do We Live Questions Through Art?, Routledge
Conference Proceeding
False Flag
Bert Stabler.
Amsterdam University of the Arts, 235-241, (2023)
Journal Article
Hospital, Asylum, Prison, Gallery: Debility and Aesthetic Infrastructure
Bert Stabler.
RACAR (Journal of the Universities Art Association of Canada), 49 (2), 58-68, (2025), 10.7202/1121622ar
Data, disability, detour, détournement
Bert Stabler.
Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 39 (1b), 1-16, (2024)
Disabling critique: Structural barriers to critical disability approaches in teacher education
Bert Stabler.
Feminist Pedagogy, 5 (2), 5, (2024)
Visionary barricades: Art class as memorial factory
Bert Stabler.
Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 41 (1), 141-159, (2024)
Art evading confinement: Abolition as Universal Design
Bert Stabler.
Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 40 (1), 32-55, (2023)
Artist portfolio: posters about policing (interview with Josh MacPhee)
Bert Stabler, Josh MacPhee.
Visual Arts Reseach, 48 (1), 5, (2022), https://doi.org/10.5406/21518009.48.1.05
Introduction to the special issue
Albert Stabler, Mira Rai Waits.
Visual Arts Research, 47 (2), 16, (2022), https://doi.org/10.5406/21518009.48.1.01
“There’s really almost nobody there who’s trying to make sense of it” (interview with Marc Fischer)
Bert Stabler, Marc Fischer.
Visual Arts Research, 48 (1), 12, (2022), https://doi.org/10.5406/21518009.48.1.06
A Sentimental Art Education
Bert Stabler.
Studies in Art Education, 62 (1), 63-81, (2021), 10.1080/00393541.2020.1859273
“Press Charges”: Art Class, White Feelings, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Albert Stabler.
Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, (2021)
“This is NOT okay:” Building a creative collective against academic ableism
Rebecca Eli Long, Albert Stabler.
Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, (2021), https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2021.1926374
Institutional model: a modest proposal
Albert Stabler.
PLATFORM, (2020)
The Contractual Aesthetics of Sharecropping in Black Conceptualism
Bert Stabler.
Critical Arts, 34 (6), 41-55, (2020), 10.1080/02560046.2020.1829668
White empathy and the educational neutralization of hip-hop
Albert Stabler.
Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 37, 231-247, (2020)
Race and ‘Disability Passing’ in a Chicago Public School Art Classroom
Bert Stabler.
International Journal of Art & Design Education, 38 (4), 867-877, (2019), 10.1111/jade.12275
Art Education and the Moral Injunction to be Oneself
Bert Stabler.
International Journal of Art & Design Education, 37 (3), 377-386, (2018), 10.1111/jade.12133
Burning cotton: Art education and the unemptied dustbin of history
Bert Stabler.
International Journal of Education Through Art, 14 (1), 117-129, (2018), 10.1386/eta.14.1.117_1
The White Art Teacher's Burden: Aesthetics, Pedagogy, and Political Self-Awareness
Bert Stabler.
Visual Arts Research, 44 (2), 15, (2018), 10.5406/visuartsrese.44.2.0015
A Missouri author in a Roman law court: Pudd’nhead Wilson as an allegory of colourblind empire
Bert Stabler.
Law and Humanities, 11 (2), 245-265, (2017), 10.1080/17521483.2017.1384112
A fluid frontier: slavery, resistance, and the underground railroad in the Detroit river borderland
Bert Stabler.
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40 (3), 567-569, (2017), 10.1080/01419870.2016.1229495
Legislative art as policy and pedagogy
Bert Stabler.
Marilyn Zurmuehlen Working Papers in Art Education, 6 (1), (2016), 10.17077/2326-7070.1499
Mike Kelley and the Supermax: the traumatic architecture of ‘artificial memory.’
Albert Stabler.
Third Text, 30 (1-2), 27-42, (2016), 10.1080/09528822.2016.1266215
Punishment in Effigy: An aesthetics of torment versus a pedagogy of pain in Georges Bataille and Eric Garner
Bert Stabler.
Photographies, 9 (3), 307-326, (2016), 10.1080/17540763.2016.1202131
Stoic indulgence, gratuitous restraint: White feelings and campus art
Bert Stabler.
Studies in Art Education, 64 (2), 198-218, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2023.2180257
Other
Cielo Saucedo / Body double
Bert Stabler.
(2024)
Darrin Martin:/ Binaural mirage
Bert Stabler.
(2024)
Disabled artist symposium, 4/10/24
Bert Stabler.
(2024)
Ariella Granados: Disabling utopia
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Disabled artist symposium, 4/5/23
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Dominic Quagliozzi: Medical history
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Em Kettner: Sickbeds, stragglers, and supplicants
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Emilie Louise Gossiaux: Working with the dreaming body
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Jennifer Justice: “Who is the person/ whose job it is to remove/ fingerprints from the Brancusis?”
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Jillian Crochet: Handle With care
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Joselia Rebekah Hughes: The gravity of slowness
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Mae Howard: Rituals of suspension
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2023)
Alex Dolores Salerno, "Arranged With Care"
Bert Stabler, Alex Dolores Salerno.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Andy Slater, "Invisible Ink"
Bert Stabler, Andrew J. Slater.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Chloe Pascal Crawford, works in progress
Bert Stabler, Chloe Pascal Crawford.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Christopher Samuel: Institutional Model
Bert Stabler, Christopher Samuel.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Disabled artist symposium 4/29/22
Bert Stabler, Andrew J. Slater, Sky Cubacub, Rebecca-Eli Long, Christopher Samuel, Gary Cannone.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Gary Cannone, Text Samplers
Bert Stabler.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Jessica Karuhanga, "ground and cover me"
Bert Stabler, Jessica Karuhanga.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Liza Sylvestre + Christopher Robert Jones: Flashlight Project (excerpt)
Bert Stabler, Liza Sylvestre, Christopher Robert Jones.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Rebecca-Eli Long: The Role of Spite in Keeping You Warm
Bert Stabler, Rebecca-Eli Long.
Institutional Model, (2022)
Presentations
Urban environmental public art interventions with young people
Bert Stabler.
International Journal of Art and Design Education 2025 Conference, Online, November, 2025
Art, children, and the fascist politics of conspiracy
Bert Stabler.
2025 Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH, October, 2025
ARTS, JOY, AND RESISTANCE DURING IDEOLOGICAL RETRENCHMENT
Bert Stabler, Karyn Sandlos, Jamie Buffington Adams, Sandra Vanderbilt, Kelly P. Vaughan.
2025 Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH, October, 2025
Reading Deviant Matter with/in educational research
Bert Stabler, Tristan G. Gleason, Paul Eaton.
2025 Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH, October, 2025
Disabled performance, crip time, and assessment as endurance
Bert Stabler.
Art Education Research Institute Annual Symposium, State College, PA, October, 2025
Opening panel: Research clusters & roundtable discussion
Bert Stabler, Mira Kallio-Tavin, Kimberly Powell, Lillian Lewis, Fiona Blakie.
Art Education Research Institute Annual Symposium, State College, PA, October, 2025
No rubrics: Anti-ableist art assessment
Bert Stabler.
SECAC Annual Conference, Cincinnati, OH, October, 2025
Making games with mundane tech: The Microsoft Office and Google Workspace edition
Bert Stabler, Hong-An Wu.
National Art Education Association Annual Convention, Louisville, KY (attended online due to illness), March, 2025
No rubrics: Anti-ableist art assessment
Bert Stabler.
National Art Education Association Annual Convention, Louisville, KY (unable to attend), March, 2025
The pedagogical aesthetics of Mel Baggs and Sonia Boué.
Bert Stabler.
Neurodiversity in the Arts Symposium, Online, November 15, 2024
Building belonging through equity: Simple steps to make your lessons culturally responsive and relevant using contemporary artists
Bert Stabler, Tanya Marie Scott, Nick Hostert, Libby McArthur, Aaron Cummins.
Illinois Art Education Association Annual Conference, Normal, IL, October 19, 2024
Let the artists be your guide: Culturally responsive lesson /activity share
Bert Stabler, Tanya Marie Scott, Aaron Cummins, Libby McArthur, Deanna Sortino.
Illinois Art Education Association Annual Conference, Normal, IL, October 19, 2024
Elevating underrepresented arts educators: Empowering voices & diversifying perspectives
Bert Stabler, Nick Hostert, Frederick Royster, Shivani Bhalla, Moksha Khanna.
Illinonis Art Education Association Annual Conference, Normal IL, October 18, 2024
“Queerness is in the horizon”: Performance art as prefigurative art education
Bert Stabler.
Art Education Research Institute 2024 Symposium, Cambridge, United Kingdom, September 20, 2024
Black disabled women artists and the improvisation of confinement
Bert Stabler.
American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, April 14, 2024
Teaching critical disability art as embodied form
Bert Stabler.
National Art Education Association Annual Convention, Minneapolis, MN, April 6, 2024
Art about school: Creative research on the institution
Bert Stabler.
National Art Education Association Annual Convention, Minneapolis, MN, April 5, 2024
Stories from a special issue of Studies in Art Education on antiracist strategies and interventions
Bert Stabler.
National Art Education Association Annual Convention, Minneapolis, MN, April 5, 2024
Guerrilla assemblage in the context of urban education
Bert Stabler.
College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, February 16, 2024
The aesthetics of refusal: From Dada to disability conceptualism
Bert Stabler.
2023 SECAC Annual Conference, Richmond, Virginia, October, 2023
Disability disclosure in academia: risks and benefits
Bert Stabler, Alice Wexler, Timothy Smith, JT Eisenhauer Richardson, Shivani Bhalla.
Art Education Research Institute 2023 Symposium, Tucson, Arizona, October, 2023
Panics and Pandemics: The aesthetics of resisting American eliminationism
Bert Stabler.
Art Education Research Institute 2023 Symposium, Tucson, Arizona, October, 2023
Beyond the Paperwork: A Discussion on How to Better Assist Students with Disabilities in the Creative Classroom
Katie Krcmarik, Bert Stabler, Natalee Tyree, Donald Kent Kerr, Johnathon Strube.
2023 UCDA Design Education Summit, Bowling Green, OH, May 22, 2023
Abolitionism as Universal Design
Bert Stabler.
National Art Education Association 2023 Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas, April, 2023
“Press charges:” Art class, white feelings, and the school-to-prison pipeline
Bert Stabler.
National Art Education Association 2023 Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas, April, 2023