By: Ellen C. Caldwell
for Art History Teaching Resources (AHTR)
This past summer, I led a seminar inspired by the #FergusonSyllabus movement that Georgetown history professor Marcia Chatelain started back in August of 2014, in the wake of Michael Brown’s death, the protests in Ferguson, and the delayed start to school.
Chatelain wrote an article for the Atlantic exploring ways to teach students about race, racism, policing, and the events unfolding in Ferguson. She suggested crowdsourcing a syllabus for this and with that, the hashtag took on a life of its own.
During the summer and months to come, I immersed myself in the news and rich plethora of writing coming from both within and outside of the academy. I was in awe at the abundance of seemingly exponential resources coming from sites like Slate, Salon, Mic, the Root, Medium, and the Atlantic. I was also exploring Periscope and other social media sites that were empowering citizen journalists and placing potential in the palm of our youth’s hands.
In the meantime, I had proposed a graduate seminar for the upcoming summer called “The Local Global: American Art & Globalization in the Digital Age.” My goal was to reconsider popular visual culture and digital media, considering how media was impacting and disrupting museums, galleries, and art market via apps like Instagram…