Department of Art History

Art historians have developed and adapted many tools for understanding the work of art at the moment of its creation and tracking its various movements as it circulates among, private, corporate, and museum collections, among other destinations. But what tools do we possess for studying the daily experiences of living with pictures (paintings, prints, photographs, other examples of portable visual culture)? How might we access the mundane and often unrecorded encounters with works of art that take place in a variety of spaces (in the home, in the workplace, aboard a steamboat, etc.), and what new or not-yet studied idioms of inquiry might be necessary or useful? How might locating and writing about such encounters take us beyond the wealthy, white, male, New York-centric narratives of 19th century American art discourse and its historiography? This graduate seminar draws together the work of scholars across and beyond the discipline of art history who have attempted these kinds of explorations, and invites participants to think deeply and critically about these questions as they intersect with and diverge from "empathy" as an art historical concept. Although many case studies will be drawn from my research into historical American art, the seminar is designed to be useful to students working in any branch of art history or visual or material culture studies.