Professor Zerner's areas of interest include the history of art and architecture in Latin America, particularly with respect to the histories of landscape design, buildings, and cartography.
Professor Zerner is completing a study of Europe's first image of the Aztec capital of Mexico (the 1524 Nuremberg map of Tenochtitlán) and its impact on European urban thought. Other projects include:
The Invention of Pathos: Spanish Polychrome Sculpture of the Golden Age, 1520-1700
, a related study of Corpus Christi processions in Colonial Latin America, and a book length study,
Building and Landscape in the Early Modern World
. A conference on the art of festivals in Latin America was organized and held in the spring of 2006.
Research on the map of Tenochtitlán and European urbanism is being funded by Salomon Faculty Research grant from Brown University (2005-2007).
Work on Spanish polychrome sculpture and related topics in Latin America were funded by a sabbatical grant from Brown University and a Cogut Grant.
Research on the history of cartography and preparation of undergraduate seminar (Spring 2006)was funded by a Wriston Curricular Development Grant from Brown University.
The work on relations between landscape and building in the early modern world was funded in part by a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for 1996/97.
Additional past grants include:
-A Spanish language grant for FLAC section, HA 15(1997)
-Thomas J. Watson , Jr. Institute for International Studies travel grant, Brown University (1996)
-Grant from Research Grant program for cultural cooperation between Spain's Ministry Of Culture and American Universities (1996)
-Curricular Development Grant, Brown University (1996)
-National Endowment for the Arts Matching grant for Philip II and the Escorial:Technology and the Representation of Architecture, Brown University(1990)
-American Council of Learned Societies (ALCS) grant for research on Juan de Herrera (1982-83)
-National Endowment for the Arts Matching grant for Ornament and Architecture, Brown University (1979)
-American Philosophical Society Summer Grant for research on Juan de Herrera (1978-79)
-Membership with full fellowhship Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey (1977-78)
-National Endowment for the Arts matching grant for Drawings and Prints of the First Maniera, Brown (1973)
-American Philosophical Society Summer Grant, Research on sculpture of Alonso Berruguete (1967)
-S.H. Kress Grant for archival research in Spain (1967)
-S.H. Kress Grant for research at Teotihuacan, Mexico (1966)
-Fulbright Grant to Spain (1966-67)
-Yale University tuition and Fellowships (1965-66)
