To mobilize is to set in motion, to marshal, to deploy, to rally. Art history activates the work of artists while engaging with culture, nature, politics, and power. Through four lectures with slides, we will consider some of the most relevant topics for art history, the humanities, and democracy today. The Humanities encompass human belief, knowledge, expression, and experience. The visual arts provide deeply historical, cross-cultural, spiritual, and political artifacts of human struggle and thriving. They provide beauty but also pain, joy, and sorrow. Art is not simply a document, a reflection of its time. Artists intervene, and art does things in the world. It is the job of art history to keep it alive. This course seeks to do just that. This program is being presented as a seminar with limited enrollment to foster discussion.

LECTURES:

1. Collective Memory and the Work of Memorials: Public spaces are sites of contention, but also shared places of memory and healing. The "co" in commemoration means we must decide together.

2. Looking With So We Don't Look Away: How can a shared collection of images allow us to confront trauma with courage, or violence with empathy?

3. Curatorial Complexity and Works of Art in Conversation: Art history in museums is often unnoticed. But good curators put famous works in tension, and introduce us to new narratives and contexts.

4. Mobilizing Art History for the Future of Democracy: An informed citizenry in the 21st century needs visual discernment and cultural literacy to thrive.