In the Classroom
With Who Owns Culture? students at a meeting of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, Department of State, Washington, D.C., October 2016
Cultural heritage studies
My recent teaching interests center on the field of cultural heritage. In courses such as Global Perspectives on the Museum (with Sanchita Balachandran), Who Owns Culture?, and Heritage, Memory, and Temporality (NYU), students investigate how legal, political, and policy matters intersect with the study of heritage.
Dr. Matt Mountain, then director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, talks to student curators of Mapping the Cosmos: Images from the Hubble Space Telescope at the Walters Art Museum in 2008.
Hands-on teaching
Students in my practicum courses have organized exhibitions, developed public programs, and reinterpreted historic installations. Whether working with Renaissance prints, mid-20th-century murals, or Hubble imagery, these courses have allowed them to get out of the classroom and apply theory to practice.
A. Garay and I. Altherr examine swords in the Evergreen Museum & Library collection at Johns Hopkins as part of a fall 2015 freshman seminar, All About Things.
Materials and materiality
In collaboration with colleagues, I have designed and taught courses connecting students to materials in a humanistic context. These include Readings in Material Culture (with Rebecca Brown), Conservation of Material Culture: Art, Artifacts and Heritage Sites (with Lori Trusheim), and the freshman seminar All About Things.
In the conservation lab at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, with conservator Stéphanie Élarbi.
Screenshot of a student project for Art on the Move, in collaboration with the Walters Art Museum.
At the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, with students and co-instructor Ben Tilghman.
Digital Projects
Students in my courses have developed web content for the Baltimore Museum of Art, Walters Art Museum, and Johns Hopkins University museums . Several grants from Hopkins' Center for Educational Resources allowed me to design and implementa digital mapping tool that students have used to study and research museum history.
Study Abroad
In Paris, Venice, and Florence (for JHU's MLA program), I have introduced students to the ways that museums, monuments, and heritage sites reflect and shape cultural environments. Behind-the-scenes tours and lectures from local specialists offer rare perspectives and opportunities for students.
Student Testimonials
In 2009, I was awarded Johns Hopkins University's Alumni Association Excellence inTeaching Award, based on nominations and letters of support from students (I was a finalist for the award in 2017).