About the Presenter
Joseph D. Litts is a Ph.D. Candidate in art history at Princeton University. His dissertation, entitled Natural Disaster in the Atlantic World: Aesthetics, Delight, and Risk During the Eighteenth Century, examines representations of catastrophe: how does material culture instruct observers how to negotiate disaster? Ultimately, Sublime aesthetics attempted to transform the risks of eighteenth-century life into something beneficial across pleasure gardens, novels, and paintings. At Mount Vernon, Joseph will examine the library’s manuscript collections to better understand how both Washington and everyone on the estate managed potential risks and responded to actual disasters, such as storms.