Speaking

Keynote And Plenary Lectures

2024

Keynote Lecture, “Troubling Monuments in 21st Century America,” New Monuments: Iconoclasm, Reenactments, and Alternative Commemorations in the United States Since 2000, INHA (Institut national d’histoire de l’art), Paris, March 16.

2023

Keynote Lecture: “Edward Hopper’s American Things,” Cape Ann & the Making of Edward Hopper, Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, September 29.

Keynote Lecture: “Men, Men, Men: Maynard Dixon’s Masculinist Take on the American West,” Maynard Dixon: Searching for a Home Symposium, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, March 23.

2022

Keynote Lecture: “Memory Matters: Visions of America in Public Art,” International Teacher Academy, American Studies, University of Education Vorarlberg, Austria, June 22.

Keynote Lecture: “‘Technology and Sex and Blood’: How Life Magazine Shaped Postwar American Tastes and Desires,” Postwar Faculty Colloquium, University of North Texas, April 8.

2020

Keynote Lecture: “Public Art Matters, 2020: Thoughts on Context, Stewardship, and Accountability,” GSA Art Program Annual Conference, Washington, DC, August 18. (remote)

2019
Keynote Lecture: “Edward Hopper and the Meaning of Home,” Edward Hopper, Hotels, and Other Spaces, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, November 15.
2018
Keynote Lecture: “Monumental Troubles: Reckoning with Problematic Public Art in America,” Midwest Art History Society Annual Conference, Indianapolis Museum of Art, April 5.
2017
Keynote Address, “Taking History to Task: Cultural Vandalism and Memorial Mania, or: Goodbye Columbus,” Troubling Histories: Public Art and Prejudice, University of Johannesburg, November 15.
Keynote Lecture, “American Art Matters: Rethinking Materiality in American Studies,” Matte Reality: Historical Trajectories and Conceptual Futures for Material Culture Studies, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Freiburg, March 23.
Keynote Address: “Spiritual Moderns: American and Canadian Artists and the Search for Higher States,” Lawren Harris & Modernity Symposium, Mc Michael Canadian Art Collection, Toronto, March20.
2016
Keynote Address: “Screwball Regionalism: Grant Wood and Humor During the Great Depression,” Grant Wood Art Colony 5th Biennial Symposium, University of Iowa, October 28.
Keynote Lecture: “Why Benton Matters: Re-Visioning Regionalism in the History of Modern American Art,” 23rd Biannual Art History and Archaeology Graduate Student Symposium, University of Missouri, Columbia, March 18.
Keynote Lecture: “A New Deal for American Art: Work Relief and Cultural Pluralism in the United States, 1933-1945,” Art for the People: WPA and New Deal Programs in Kentucky and Beyond, Murray State University, March 11.
2015
Keynote Address, “From Benton to Ford: Narrative Paradigms in Modern American Art and the Movies,” Thomas Hart Benton and American Storytelling, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, June 5.
Keynote Lecture: “Writing My Religion: Journalistic Practices and Issues of Faith for Modern American Artists,” Wordstruck: American Artists as Readers, Writers, and Literati, Marie-Curie Sklodowska University, Lublin, May 14.
Keynote Address: “Piecing Grief, Making Claims: Commemorative Quilts and American Activism,” 7th Biennial Symposium of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, April 17.
Keynote Address: “Commemorating Disaster and Disobedience: National Park Service Initiatives inthe 21st Century,” Terror, Trauma, Memory: A Symposium Dedicated to the 20th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, University of Oklahoma, Norman, April 13.
2011
Keynote Address: “Public Art, Public Feeling,” Public Art Preconference of the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, San Diego, June 15.
Keynote Lecture: “Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” California American Studies Association Annual Meeting, California State University, Fullerton, May 7.
Keynote Lecture, “Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” Memory and the Visual Symposium,” Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, April 1.
Keynote Lecture, “Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” 21st Annual Art History Graduate Student Symposium, Department of Art History, Indiana University, Bloomington, March 26.
2010
Plenary Lecture: “Lynching Memorials and Sites of Shame: Transforming Violence in American Commemorative Cultures,” Colloquium on Violence and Religion, University of Notre Dame, July 2.
2008
Plenary Lecture: “Who Owns Historical Memory? Commemorative Conflicts in the American Southwest,” The Past in the Present: The American Uses of History, Polish Association for American Studies 2008 Annual Conference, Warsaw, October 23.
Keynote Address, “Action, Agency, Affect: Thomas Hart Benton's Hoosier History,” for Thomas Hart Benton's Indiana Murals at 75: Public Art and the Public University, Indiana University, Bloomington, April 26.
2005
Keynote Address, “Memorial Mania,” First Annual Undergraduate Art History Association Annual Symposium, University of Colorado, Boulder, April 2.
2004
Keynote Address, “Memorial Mania: Monuments and Memory in Contemporary America,” 19th Annual University of Iowa Graduate Student Art History Symposium, Iowa City, Iowa, February 27.
2003
Keynote Address, “Memorial Mania: Monuments and Memory in Contemporary America,” Graduate Student Symposium, Department of Art History, University of Virginia, November 15.Keynote Address, “Indians, Corn, and National Identity: Maynard Dixon’s New Deal Murals for the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” 5th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Kansas State University, Manhattan, May 30.
2002
Keynote Address, “American Art and Religion in the 20th Century: Rethinking the Modernist Divide,” 10th Annual Art History & Archaeology Graduate Student Symposium, University of Missouri-Columbia, March 16.

Conference Papers

2024

“Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion,” Multiple Modernities: Initiatives in Art and Culture 28th Annual American Art Conference, New York, May 10.

2023

“Honest Illustration: Maynard Dixon and the American West,” Blind Spots: 13th Annual Illustration Research Symposium, Washington University, St. Louis, November 3.

2021

“The Gentling Brothers and American Art History: Contemporary Realists in the Lone Star State,” Gentling Symposium, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, November 13.

2019
“Staging the American Century: Life Magazine’s Visualization of National Identity and Purpose, 1936-1945,” 21st Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, South Dakota State University, June 1.
“Illustration Across Media: Future of the Field,” Illustration Across Media: Nineteenth Century to Now, Washington University, St. Louis, March 23.
2018
“People’s Choice: Grant Wood at the Century of Progress, 1933-1934,” Chicago’s Two World’s Fairs, Newberry Library, Chicago, December 8.
“Spiritual Surrealists: Joseph Cornell, Mina Loy, and Religious Currents in Interwar American Surrealism,” Surrealisms: Inaugural Conference of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism, Bucknell University, November 3.
“Letters to Lucy Lippard: Using the Archives to Talk About Feminism and the Art World,” 5th Biennial Conference of The Association of the Historians of American Art, Minneapolis, October 6.
“Agnes Pelton’s Spiritual Modernism,” Celebrating Female Agency in the Arts, Christie’s Education, New York, June 27.
“Modern Art and Religious Resistance: Agnes Pelton’s Visionary Abstractions,” 20th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, University of Northern Colorado, June 7.
“Spiritual Searching: 20th Century Modern American Artists and the Quest for Meaning,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Sacramento, April 12.
“Agnes Pelton’s ‘light message to the world’: 20th Century American Artists and Spiritual Modernism,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, February 21.
“Regionalism’s Geographic Diversity: The Lure of the Local in American Art of the 1930s,” Beyond America’s Heartland: Regionalism and the Art of the American West, 12th Annual Petrie Institute of Western American Art Symposium, Denver Art Museum, January 4.
2017
“Theaster Gates & the Stony Island Arts Bank,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 10.
“American Art and Social Satire in the 1930s: Grant Wood’s Queer Parody,” 2017 Southeastern College Art Association Annual Meeting, Columbus, October 27.
“Death, Decay, and Ruination: Paul Thek’s Technological Reliquaries and the Muses of Italy,” The Course of Empires: American-Italian Cultural Relations 1770-1980, Smithsonian American Art Museum, October20.
“Windmills and Mountains: Agnes Pelton, Marsden Hartley, and Spiritual Modernism in New England,” ‘Somehow a Past’: New England Regionalism, 1900-1960, Colby College Museum of Art, October 6.
“Not My President: Spoofing the Colonial Past in 1930s American Art,” 19th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, University of Mississippi, Oxford, May 27.
“Memory, History, Labor: Enduring Themes in American Art,” Art in Conversation: Environment, Identity, Memory, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, April 8.
2016
“American Moderns, Spiritual Seekers: Hartley, O’Keeffe, and Pelton in Taos,” Southwest Art History Conference XXVIII, Taos, October 13.
“Kentucky and the Index of American Design: Regional Crafts and Cultural Nationalism in New Deal America,” Kentucky By Design Symposium, Frazier History Museum, Louisville, September 16.
“Multiple Moderns: American Art and Artists During the Great Depression,” Symposium: America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, Art Institute of Chicago, September 10.
“Documentary Voyeurism: Surveilling Female Flesh in 1930s American Art,” 18th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Mc Gill University, June 3.
2015
“Memorial Mapping: Transnational 9/11 Memorials and Geographies of Global Anti-Terrorism,” 62nd Annual Conference of the German American Studies Association, Bonn, May 30.
“Benton’s Cinematic Style: Movies, Modernism, and America Today,” Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural: New Perspectives, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 2.
2014
“Managing Mourning: Victim Memorials and the Volatile Politics of Grief,” The Art of Memory and Mourning: A Symposium in Honor of Cindy Mills, Smithsonian American Art Museum, November 14.
“Public Feeling, Public Healing: Contemporary Memorials and the Mediation of Grief,” Cultures of Privacy, Bavarian American Academy, Munich, June 27.
“Arrival and Afterlife: Jackson Pollock’s Mural and the University of Iowa,” Jackson Pollock’s Mural:Transition, Context, and Afterlife, Getty Research Institute, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, May 6.
“Rejecting Monuments: Issues of Vandalism, Removal, Relocation, and Destruction,” Monument/Anti-Monument, Sculpture City Saint Louis 2014, Saint Louis, April 12 (read by Harriet Senie).
“Transnational 9/11 Memorials: Mapping the Geographies of American Affective and Political Cultures,” 5th International Conference: Transnational American Studies, American University of Beirut, January 7.
2013
“Commemorating the Port Chicago Naval Magazine Disaster of Remembering Racial Injustice During the ‘Good War’,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November24.
“Spiritual Abstractions and Desert Landscapes: Agnes Pelton’s Choices and the Construction of Modern American Art,” 2013 Southeastern College Art Conference, Greensboro, North Carolina, November 1.
“Semiotic Disobedience, Purposeful Anger: Memorials and Cultural Vandalism,” The Futures of American Studies Conference, Dartmouth College, June 18.
“Memory Claims: Recognition, Representation, and Response in Today’s Memorial Landscape,” International Fellows Program: Legacy and the New Landscape, School of Architecture, Art & Historic Preservation, Roger Williams University, May 22.
“Public Art/Public Response,” Art, Race, Space Symposium, IUPUI, Indianapolis, January 25.
2012
“Buying the Farm: Collecting American Regionalist Art Then and Now,” Mid-American College Art Association Annual Conference, Detroit, October 5.
“He Found It at the Movies: Edward Hopper’s Filmic Influences,” Edward Hopper, El Cine Y La Vida Moderna, Simposia Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, June 22.
“Cult Materialism: Violet Consuming Flames, Light Charts, Love Gifts, and the Mighty ‘I AM’,” 14th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Brown University, June14.
“Collecting ‘Good American Paintings’: King Vidor and Grant Wood’s Arbor Day (1932),” Grant Wood Biennial Symposium 2012, University of Iowa, April 14.
2011
“Aesthetics, Function, and Reception of the Contemporary Memorial,” Memorial Mania: Negotiating Social and Political Strategies of Memory, International Symposium of the American Academy of Berlin, Haus der Kulterun der Welt, Berlin, December 10.
“Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion,” Challenging 1945: Exploring Continuities in American Art, 1890s to the Present, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center Symposium, Santa Fe, July 15.
2010
“Terrorism Memorials and Security Narratives: Commemorating Fear in Post-9/11 America,” Visual Securitization: Threats, Genre, and Temporality, Centre for Advanced Security Theory, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, December 16.
“We Are All Warriors: War Memorials and National Identity Formation in Contemporary America,” 21st Century Soldiering: Mercenaries, Memorials, Movies, Centre for Advanced Security Theory, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, December 15.
“Picturing Faith: Mark Tobey's Visualization of Baha'i,” 12th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, University of Portland, June 18.
“‘Race Memory’ and the National Mall: The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial,” Organization of American Historians Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., April 9.
2009
“Statue Mania Moralizing: Augustus Saint-Gauden's The Puritan,” Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Symposium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 9.
“Art Histories,” What's Modern About American Art, 1900-1930, Terra Foundation for American Art Symposium, Chicago, June 19.
“Crowd Sounds: Mobs, Noise, and Public Feelings in 1930s American Art,” 11th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, University of Notre Dame, June 11.
“Memorial Mania and Security Narratives: Commemorating Fear in Post-9/11 America,” Art Under Surveillance Symposium, Columbus Museum of Art, May 2.
2008
“Framing Public Art History: Developing a Critical Language,” 21st International Sculpture Conference, Grand Rapids, October 3.
“Managing Mourning Along America's Historic Highways: Issues of Presence and Preservation with Roadside Memorials,” Preserving the Historic Road 1998-2008, 6th Biennial Conference on Historic Roads, Albuquerque, September 13.
“The Exiled American Other in The Grapes of Wrath,” 10th Annual Conference of The Space Between Society: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Northwestern University, June 13.
2007
“War, Memory, and the Public Mediation of Affect,” War and Media in the Digital Age, Danish Institute for Military Studies, Copenhagen, October 29.
“Thomas Hart Benton’s National Imaginary,” Building a Legacy: Collecting American Paintings for Kansas City—A Symposium in Honor of Crosby and Bebe Kemper, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, October 20.
“Memorial Mania: Affect and Commemoration in Contemporary America,” The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real, John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikanstudien, Berlin, June 22.
Shoot-Out: Poking Fun and Challenging Myths in Western American Art,” Redrawing Boundaries: Perspectives on Western American Art, Denver Art Museum, March 10.
2006
“Statue Mania and the Protestant Ethos: Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ The Puritan,” Coming of Age: A Symposium Celebrating a Century of Art and Artists from the Collection of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, November 4.
“Mourning Our National Shame: Slavery and Lynching Memorials in America,” Constructions of Death, Mourning, and Memory Conference, Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, October 27.
“Mediating Redemption: Commemorating Slavery and Lynching in Contemporary American Memorial Culture,” The 5th International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, The Sigtuna Foundation, Sigtuna, Sweden, July 9.
“Animated Conversations: Public Art Controversy,” Public Art Preconference of the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, Milwaukee, June 1.
“The Duluth Lynching Memorial: Public Art, Civic Shame, and Moral Responsibility in Contemporary America,” The 11th Annual Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference on North American Studies, University of Helsinki, Renvall Institute, May 17.
“The Aesthetics of Patriotic Persuasion: The National World War II Memorial,” European Association for American Studies Biennial Conference, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, April 8.
2005
“Minimalism and the Future of Memory: Issues of Art Style and Affect in Contemporary Commemoration,” The Future of Memory: An International Holocaust and Trauma Studies Conference, University of Manchester, November 11.
Spirit Warriors and Custer's Last Stand: Rethinking the American West at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument,” American Studies Association of Norway Annual Conference, Oslo, October 29.
“Victors, Victims, and Western Memories: Monuments at Little Bighorn,” (Im)Permanence: Cultures In/Out of Time, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, October 14.
“Memorializing Shame and Moral Responsibility: Remembering May 4, 1970,” The Sixth Annual Symposium on Democracy, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, May 3.
“Place and Public Feeling” for the session "Erika Doss: Author Meets Audience, " Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Denver, April 6.
“Shame of the Nation: The Duluth Lynching Memorial and Issues of Civic Morality,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, February 18.
2004
“American Moderns and the American Scene,” Remapping the New: Modernism in the Midwest, 1893-1945, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, September 18.
“From Mystical Calligraphy to White Writing: Mark Tobey and Bahai,” 4th International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, Louisville, September 4.
“Tempting the Unwilling Audience: Re-Thinking the Public for Airport Art,” 3rd Annual Arts in the Airport Workshop, American Association of Airport Executives, Scottsdale, May 17.
“Arbitrary Cut-Off Dates, Nationalist Baggage, and Secularization Theory: Rethinking the Modernist Divide in American Art History and Religion,” Mind the Gap: On the Modernist Divide in American Art/History, Stanford University, April 16.
2003
“‘Lone Missionary’: Intersections of Art and Faith in the Work of Self-Taught Artist Henry Darger,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Atlanta, November 22.
“The Sacred and the Profane: Rethinking Religion in Modern and Contemporary American Art,” Past and Present: George Inness and the Visionary in Art Symposium, The National Academy of Design, New York, October 25.
“Victors, Victims, and Western Memories: Monuments at Little Bighorn,” Monuments, Memory, & Modernism, 12th Annual Front Range Symposium in Art History, University of Colorado, September 27.
“Joseph Cornell and Christian Science,” Boxing Clever: A Centennial Re-Evaluation of Joseph Cornell, Centre for Studies in Surrealism & Its Legacies, University of Essex, September 18.
2002
“Visual Culture and the Study of Religion,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Toronto, November 24.
“Memory, Redemption, and the Greatest Generation: The National World War II Memorial,” International Association for Media and Communication Research Annual Meeting, Barcelona, July 24.
“The Indian Yesterday, The Indian Today: Maynard Dixon’s New Deal Murals for the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” Refiguring the Ecological Indian, 10th Annual Symposium, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, April 26.
“Memorial Mania: Public Monuments, Cultural Nationalism, and Historical Amnesia in Contemporary America,” Cultural Memory and Sites of Tradition Colloquium, University of Colorado, March 7.
“Rethinking Religion and Twentieth Century American Art,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, February 22, Philadelphia.
2001
“Death, Memory, and Public Sculpture: The Oklahoma City National Memorial,” Colloque Mémoire Sculptée de l’Europe, Strasbourg, December 4.
“Paris Fashions and Civil Rights: Reconsidering Gordon Parks,” Laying Claim: (Re)Considering Artists of African Descent in the Americas, Colgate University, October 25.
“Picturing Their Religion: Self-Taught Artists and Spirituality,” Hahn Symposium, A Golden Era of Southern Self-Taught Art, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, August 17.
Tribute to the American Working People: Rethinking Work, Workers, and the Work Ethic in Postwar Art,” Working Class Studies 5th Biennial Conference, Youngstown State University, May 18.
2000
“Spirituality and Contemporary Art,” Symposium On the Visual Culture of American Religions, The American Bible Society, New York, December 1.
“Death and Memory in the Public Sphere: The Visual and Material Culture of Grief in Contemporary America,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Detroit, October 13.
“Religious Dimensions of Work by Contemporary Self-Taught Artists: Speculations on New Methodologies and Perspectives,” Negotiating Boundaries: A Conference on Issues in the Study, Preservation, and Exhibition of Self-Taught Artists, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, May 5.
“Witnessing the Beloved Community: Tim Rollins and K.O.S.,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, New York, February 25.
1999
“Death, Memory, and Public Sculpture: The Oklahoma City National Memorial,” Eighth Front Range Art Symposium, Denver Art Museum, November 6.
“Robert Gober's ‘Virgin’ Installation: Issues of Spirituality in Contemporary American Art,” The Visual Culture of American Religions Conference, Winterthur, Winterthur, Delaware, October 22.
“Reclaiming Death in the Public Sphere: The Visual and Material Culture of Grief in Contemporary America,” Thanatographia: Figuring Death Conference, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, October 2(read by Zoe Sofoulis).
“Studying the Art of the American West: Its Pursuit Within the Context of American Art History,” Inaugural Symposium on Western & Native American Art, Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of the American West, University of Oklahoma, September 10.
“Staging the Sacred: Mass Media Attention to the Visual and Material Culture of Grief and Mourning,” Third International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, University of Edinburgh, July21 (read by Lynn Clark).
“Making Icons in Mainstream America: Fans, Faith, and Image in Elvis Culture,” Congres Association Francaise d'Etudes Americaines, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, May 28.
“The Body of Labor: Re-Imaging White Working Class Masculinity in 1930s American Art,” American Culture Association Annual Conference, San Diego, April 1.
“Women, Work, and Images of the American West: Cultural Production and Western Women Artists, 1890-1945,” Women and Work Conference, University of Nebraska, Kearney, March 5.
“Reframing the Frontier: Women Artists On the Edge in the American West,” Women's Caucus for the Arts Annual Conference, Los Angeles, February 9.
1998
“We Paid How Much? Public Art From the Outside Looking In,” Americans For the Arts Annual Conference, Denver, June 8.
“Representing Work, Reassessing the Work Ethic: Images of Labor in 1930s American Art,” Perspectives on New Deal America: History, Art, Architecture, and Public Policy Conference, The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, Miami Beach, March 28.
“Women Artists in the American West: Minerva Teichert's ‘Great Mormon Story’,” Minerva Teichert Lecture Series, Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, Provo, February 12.
1997
“Family Fun and Psychic Redemption in the 1950s: Fantasy Art and Architecture at Disney's Magic Kingdom,” Symposium for the exhibition "The Architecture of Reassurance: Designing the Disney Theme Parks, "Walker Art Center, October 25.
“Elvis is America,” Third Annual International Conference on Elvis Presley, Memphis College of Art, August 11.
“Regionalism and American Art: Experiments in Cultural Democracy,” Regionalism in Colorado Symposium, Denver University, May 10.
1996
“Creating Community, Debating Democracy: The Importance of Public Sculpture in Contemporary America,” International Town Meeting: Playing for Keeps: A Game Plan to Save Outdoor Sculpture, Washington, DC, November 17.
“Toward an Iconography of American Labor: Work, Workers, and the Work Ethic in American Art, 1930-1945,” The Politics of Design, 1885-1945 Symposium, The Wolfsonian Museum, Miami Beach, March 9.
“Strip Mine Aesthetics: Public Art, Land Reclamation, and the Civic Sphere in Contemporary America,” 17th Biennial ANZASA (Australia-New Zealand American Studies Association) Conference, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, February 5.
“The Miracle of Elvis: Myth, Ritual, and the Therapeutic Ethos Among the Elvis Fan Community,” First International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, University of Colorado, Boulder, January 12.
1995
“‘I must paint’: Women Painters in the Rocky Mountains, 1890-1945,” Independent Spirits Symposium, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, October 14.
1994
“Saint Elvis: Fans, Faith, and Sacred Objects at Graceland,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Nashville, October 28.
1993
“Re-Imagining the American Art Collections at the Denver Art Museum,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, November 6.
“Protest Aesthetics: Black Nationalism and Art in the 1960s,” Toward a History of the 1960s Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 30.
1992
“Civic Culture and Community Spirit: Contemporary Public Art in California,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Costa Mesa, November 7.
“Art in the Public Sphere: Community Controversy/Community Engagement,” Western Humanities Conference Annual Meeting, University of Washington, Seattle, October 16.
1991
“Public Spirit and Spirit Poles: Public Art in Concord, California,” Second Front Range Symposium in the History of Art, Denver Art Museum, September 21.
“Public Art and the First Amendment in Contemporary Culture,” The Cultural Context of Free Expression in Contemporary America Symposium, American Studies Program, University of Colorado, March 16.
“Catering to Consumerism with $5.00 Prints: Associated American Artists and the Marketing of Modernism in the 1930s,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, February 22.
1990
“Raising Community Consciousness with Public Art: Contrasting Projects by Judy Baca and Andrew Leicester,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 2.
“Abstract Art, Anti-Communism, and Consensus: Life Magazine in the Eisenhower Era,” Ike's America Conference, University of Kansas, October 5.
1989
Cincinnati Gateway: A Model for Public Art and Public Engagement,” Mid-America College Art Association Annual Conference, Cincinnati, November 2.
1988
“Art and Politics at Time-Life, Inc.: Creating the American Century,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Reno, March 25.
1987
Life Magazine and the Dissemination of Modern Art,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, New York, November 24.
“Avant-Garde Art and the Popular Press in Postwar America,” Mid-America College Art Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, October 23.
“Contemporary Public Art: Athena Tacha's Cosmocentric Sculpture,” National Sculpture Conference: Works by Women, Cincinnati, May 7.
1986
“Andrew Leicester's Mining Memorials,” Mid-America College Art Association Annual Meeting, Memphis, October 31.
“Land Reclamation Artwork,” Midwest Art History Society Annual Meeting, Northwestern University, March 21.
1985
“From Social Reform to Formal Progress: The Shift in Artistic Values in the 1940s,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, November 2.
1984
“From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism,” Symposium on Postwar America, Program in American Studies, University of Minnesota, April 20.
1983
“Thomas Hart Benton & Surrealism,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, February 18.
1982
“Borrowing Regionalism: Advertising’s Use of American Art in the 1930s and 1940s,” Popular Culture/American Culture Association Annual Meeting, Louisville, April 15.
“Benton, Marsh, Hopper, and Hollywood: What the Movies Meant to Artists in the 1930s,” Fifth Annual Whitney Symposium on American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, April 12.
1981
“Thirties Artists View Hollywood: The Antithesis of Happy Home and Hearth,” American Studies Association Biennial Meeting, Memphis, October 31.
Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, and Film Noir,” Sixteenth Annual Graduate Student Symposium, Art Institute of Chicago, April 25.

Invited Lectures

2025

“Monuments Are Mortal,” Glass Humanities Lecture, Pitzer College, April 15.

2024

“Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion,” Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas, April 23.

2023

“Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion,” Sensory Cultures of Religion Research Group, Yale University, October 24. (online)

“Public Art Land Art Public Art,” Groundswell: Women of Land Art Symposium, Nasher Sculpture Center, September 24.

“Troubling Monuments in 21st Century America,” Department of Art History, East Tennessee State University, April 6. (online)

“Looking at Gift Horses: Hans Haacke, Ivan Mestrovic, and Public Art in Chicago,” Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas, March 30.

“How American Art Made Relief, Recovery, and Reform a National Project During the Great Depression,” Humanities in Class Webinar, National Humanities Center, March 7. (online)

“Spirituality & Religion in American Art,” New Perspectives: Collection in Dialogue, Addison Gallery of American Art, February 21. (online)

2022

“The Myth of Freedom in American History and Memory,” Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna, June 20.

“Monumental Troubles: Public Art, Permanence, and Cultural Vandalism in Contemporary America,” University of Texas at Dallas, April 12.

“Creative Diversity: Subjects and Styles in The Baker Museum’s Permanent Collection,” The Baker Museum, Naples, Florida, January 14.

2021

“Cultural Futures: Public Art and Racial Reckoning in 21st Century America,” Albion College, March 25. (online)

2020

“Goodbye Columbus: Rethinking Troubling Monuments in America,” JCA Signature Series: Monument(al) Crisis, Butler University, October 12. (remote)

“Monuments,” Klau Center for Civil & Human Rights, University of Notre Dame, October 2. (remote)

“Troubling Monuments: Cultural Vandalism and Creative Practices of Dissent and Destruction,” University of Oregon, February 24.
“Advancing Women in Public Art: Priorities, Pitfalls, Possibilities,” Rockwell Museum, Corning, New York, January 23.
2019
“Spiritual Searching in Modern Times: Agnes Pelton’s Desert Transcendentalism,” Phoenix Museum of Art, August 17.
“Andrew Leicester and Public Art: Karmic Disruption by Design,” Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, June 30.
“Troubling Memorials: Reckoning with Problematic Public Art in America,” University of Wyoming, April 25.
“Agnes Pelton, Spiritual Modern,” Phoenix Museum of Art, April 11.
“Monumental Troubles: Disgraced Monuments and Problematic Public Art in America,” School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong, March 13.
“Monumental Troubles: Reckoning with Problematic Public Art in America,” Minneapolis Institute of Art, January 10.
2018
“Never Forget: Staking Claims and Bearing Witness in America’s Contemporary Memorial Landscape,” Atkinson Forum in American Studies, Cornell University, November 9.
“Ferrari in Chicago: Public Art, Public Response,” Department of Art History, University of Chicago, November 8.
“In Memoriam: Memorials and Other Commemorative Practices in Contemporary America,” University of Saint Joseph, West Hartford, Connecticut, November 4.
“Troubling Memorials: Disgraced Monuments in America,” The Humanities Center Illume Series, University of San Diego, September 10.
“Blood, Tar, and Sharpies: Memorial Mania and the Materiality of Cultural Vandalism,” Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, March 15.
“Troubling Memorials: Disgraced Monuments in America,” Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, March11.
2017
“Multiple Moderns: American Art and Artists During the Great Depression,” High Museum of Art, Atlanta, May 5.
“Memorial Mania,” Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina Greensboro, April 4.
2016
“Not Just a Guy’s Club: Gender Dynamics and Women Painters in the American 1950s,” Denver Art Museum, July 27.
“Thomas Hart Benton, Modern American Art, and the Movies,” Milwaukee Art Museum, July 16.
2015
“Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood,” Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, November 19.
“Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion,” Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, November 17.
“Thomas Hart Benton, Modern Art, and the Movies: Picturing American Epics,” Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, November 15.
“Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion,” Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, September 16.
2014
“Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” Department of Art History, University of California at Berkeley, October 2.
“Modern American Art and Religion,” Terra Foundation Seminar for Fellows, Smithsonian American Art Museum, September 12.
“The Transnational Dimensions and Dynamics of Commemorating 9/11,” Regensburg European American Forum Speaker, University of Regensburg, Germany, June 26.
“Victim Memorials and Sites of Conscience: Commemorating Loss, Violence and Catastrophe in Contemporary Public Art,” University of Passau, Germany, June 25.
“The Aesthetics of Victimization: Commemorating Loss, Violence, and Catastrophe in Contemporary Public Art,” Center for Interpretive and Qualitative Research, Duquesne University, April 3.
“Spiritual Moderns: 20th Century American Artists and Religion,” Dickinson College, April 2.
“Space, Place, and Commemoration: New Directions in Memorial Making, University of Arizona School of Art, Tucson, March 5.
“Pictures of Feeling: Norman Rockwell’s Affection for America,” Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, January 16.
2013
“Memorial Mania: New Directions in Commemoration,” Lake Forest College, September 26.
“American Moderns, 1934-1949: The Triumph of Diversity,” Spriestersbach Distinguished Lecture, University of Iowa, September 16.
“Memorial Mania: Who, What, Why,” Chippewa Valley Museum Practicum, University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire, June 14.
2012
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Framing American Art: Six Leading Scholars on American Art History Today, Vassar College, November 10.
“Memorial Mania,” Department of Art History, Brigham Young University, November 1.
“Memorial Mania,” Department of Art, Macalester College, St. Paul, October 18.
“Picturing New Deal America: Visual Art and National Identity, 1933-1945,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, April 17.
“Cultural Vandalism and Public Memory: Anger, Citizenship, and Memorials in Contemporary America,” Department of Art & Art History, University of Colorado at Boulder, January 31.
“Memorial Mania,” Morgan Lecture Series, University of Louisville, January 19.
2011
“Where Are You From? Contemporary Art, Cultural Globalization, and Critical Regionalism,” Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, November 5.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” American University of Beirut, October 18.
“Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” York College of Pennsylvania, September 29.
“Memorial Mania,” New School for Social Research, September 15.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Department of American Studies, University of New Mexico, April 29.
“Picturing Faith: American Modernism and Religion,” Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Research Center, Santa Fe, April 20.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Department of Art and Program in American Studies, College of William and Mary, March 28.
“Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” Department of Art, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, February 24.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” The Clinton Institutefor American Studies, University College Dublin, January 24.
2010
“Public Art, Public Feeling: Creativity and Controversy in Public Culture Today,” Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Denver, November 17.
“Makes Me Laugh, Makes Me Cry: Norman Rockwell, the Movies, and America,” Norman Rockwell, American Art, and the Movies Symposium, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, September 24.
“Picturing Ourselves: Portraits of Modern American People and Places,” Picturing America Symposium, Newark Museum of Art, June 25.
“Atomic Anxiety: Post-World War II American Culture,” North Berrien Historical Museum, North Berrien, Indiana, May 4.
“Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” Northeastern University, April 7.
“Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” Department of American Studies, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, March 29.
“Picturing the New Deal: Public Art in America, 1933-1945,” Saint Joseph's College, Rensselaer, Indiana, March 19.
2009
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Public Feeling,” Scherer Center, University of Chicago, December 4.
“Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America,” Valparaiso University, October 29.
“Founders Memorials, Indian Wars, and Contested Public Spaces: Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s The Puritan and Anger's Memory in Springfield, Massachusetts,” Newberry Library Seminar in American Art History and Visual Culture, Chicago, October 16.
“Civil Rights Memorials and Community Feelings: South Bend's Natatorium Project,” Charles Martin Youth Center, Indiana University South Bend, October 7.
“Picturing New Deal America: Visual Art and National Identity, 1933-1945,” Indiana State University Art Gallery, Terre Haute, October 1.
“Mediating Redemption: Shame-Based Memorials and Public Feeling,” Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University, September 23.
“Indians, Corn, and the American West: Maynard Dixon’s New Deal Mural for the U.S. Departmentof the Interior,” U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, Washington, D.C., September 19.
“Memorial Mania: Public Art and Public Feeling in America Today,” Saturday Scholars Series, University of Notre Dame, September 5.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Department of American Studies, University of Texas-Austin, March 6.
“Midwestern Moderns: Chicago and the Armory Show, 1913,” Union League Club, Chicago, February 19.
“War Memorials & Public Feeling,” Women, Religion, and Globalization Graduate Seminar, Yale University, February 12.
“Public Art, Public Feelings: Rethinking Public Culture in Contemporary Art,” Humanities Colloquium, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, February 10.
2008
“Nancy Graves: Life and Work,” Meadows Museum of Art, Centenary College, Shreveport, Louisiana, November 16.
“Picturing New Deal America: Visual Art and National Identity, 1933-1945,” Chicago Humanities Festival, Harold Washington Library, Chicago, November 8.
“American Realism: An Art History of an Obsession and a Practice,” Fort Wayne Museum of Art, October 11.
“Picturing New Deal America: The Visual Arts and National Identity, 1933-1945,” Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, May 8.
“Memorial Mania: Fear, Anxiety, and Contemporary American Monuments,” Belmont University, Nashville, April 3.
“Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Dickinson College, March 20.
2007
“Honore Sharrer's Tribute to the American Working People, ” Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 1.
“Statue Mania: Monuments and Memory in Gilded Age America,” Amon Carter Museum, April 26.
“Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode Island, February 28.
“Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Irwin C. Schroedl Jr. Lecture in the Decorative Arts and Material Culture, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland, February 19.
“Terrorism Memorials and Security Narratives: Responding to Fear and Anxiety in Post-9/11America,” De Pauw University, February 12.
2006
“Genius, Visionary, Icon: The Culture of Celebrity in the Contemporary Art World,” Colorado College, November 30.
“Mixed Taste: The Family Vacation,” The Lab, Lakewood, Colorado, August 17.
“Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in the Contemporary United States,” University of Southern Denmark, Odense, May 3.
“Memorial Mania,” University of Aalborg, Denmark, April 28.
“Memorial Mania,” Meertens Ethnology Lecture Series, Meertens Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, March 30.
“Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” Center for American Studies, University of Aarthus, Denmark, March 27.
“Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in the Contemporary United States,” University of Copenhagen, March 14.
“Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America,” University of Notre Dame, February 15.
2005
98th Distinguished Lecture on Research and Creative Work, “Memorial Mania: Monuments and Memory in Today's America,” University of Colorado, November 8.
“Mixed Taste: Paint by Number,” The Lab, Lakewood, Colorado, June 23.
“Statue Mania: Sculpture and Memory in Gilded Age America,” Wichita Art Museum, May 21.
“Duane Hanson and Social Realist Art,” Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, April 30.
“Memorial Mania: Public Art and Public Feelings in Contemporary America,” De Pauw University, April 18.
“Spirited Moderns: Rethinking Robert Henri's Female Art Students,” Brigham Young University Museum of Art, March 31.
The Gates: Memory and Civic Identity in Post 9/11 New York,” Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, March 17.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Public Affect in Contemporary America,” Washington University, February 3.
“Picturing Faith: Contemporary Art and Issues of Religion,” Alliance for Contemporary Art, Denver Art Museum, January 27.
“Memorial Mania: Commemoration and Public Affect in Contemporary America,” Ohio State University, January 20.
“Duane Hanson’s Social Realism,” Columbus Museum of Art, January 20.
2004
“Picturing Faith: Twentieth Century American Art and Issues of Religion,” Dorothy Kayser Hohenberg Lecture Series in Art History, University of Memphis, November 9.
“Painting the American Scene, 1930-1950,” Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, October 6.
“Duane Hanson's Ordinary America: Figurative Sculpture and Social Realism in Contemporary Art,” Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, May 8.
“Memorial Mania: Monuments, Memory, and Nationalism in Contemporary America,” New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, April 21.
“Thomas Hart Benton's The Arts of Life in America,” Whitney Museum of American Art, April 7.
“Duane Hanson: Social Realist from America's Heartland,” Plains Art Museum, Fargo, South Dakota, March 7.
“Maynard Dixon's New Deal Mural for the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” Department of Art and Art History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 12.
“Art, Politics, and National Memory, " University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, February 9.
2003
“Painting the American Scene: Rethinking Realist Art in America, 1930-1950,” Mobile Museum of Art, December 13.
“Memorial Mania: Public Monuments and Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary America,” Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, September 4.
“Controversy and Community: Why Public Art Matters,” Milwaukee Art Museum, April 24.
“Memorial Mania: Public Monuments & Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary America,” University of Cincinnati, April 7.
“Memory and Memorialization in Contemporary America,” George Washington University, March24.
“Twentieth-Century American Art and Religion,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, February 25.
“Memorial Mania: Public Monuments and Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary America,” Kenyon College, February 4.
2002
“American Art and Religion in the 20th Century: Rethinking the Modernist Divide,” Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, November 5.
“Public Art and Cultural Controversy: Murals and Monuments in Twentieth-Century America,” Dartmouth, October 3.
“Monuments and Memory in Contemporary America,” Mellon Museum Seminar, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, October 2.
“Elvis Culture: Race, Religion, and Sex in the 1950s and Beyond,” Wellesley College, October 1.
“Beyond September 11: Public Memory, Public Spaces,” Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, September 11.
“Darger in a Religious Context,” American Folk Art Museum, New York, May 17.
“Interpretive Inspiration: Rethinking Religion in Contemporary Art,” Catholic Diocese of Shreveport, April 20.
“Elvis Culture,” Bingham Visiting Scholar in the Humanities Lecture, University of Louisville, March 18.
“Public Art in the 21st Century: Monuments, Memorials, and Communities,” Wichita Art Museum, March 2.
2001
Fellows Convocation Lecture, Center for Humanities and the Arts, University of Colorado, September 5.
“Faith, Piety, and Modernism: Rethinking Religion in Contemporary American Art,” University of Georgia, April 26.
“Faith, Icons, Altars: Rethinking Religion in Contemporary American Art,” University of Nebraska, Lincoln, March 20.
“Elvis Culture,” Burke Lecture Series, Department of the History of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, February 6.
2000
“Honoré Sharrer’s Tribute to the American Working People,” Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., December 7.
“Fantasy Architecture and Family Fun: Disney’s Magic Kingdom and the 1950s,” Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, July 15.
“‘Taking a Public Stand Against Terrorism’: Collective Memory, National Identity, and the Oklahoma City National Memorial,” Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, The Ohio State University, May 24.
“Elvis Culture,” American Studies Program, Youngstown State University, May 10.
“Contemporary American Art and Religion,” Columbus Museum of Art, May 1.
“Sexing Elvis: Fans, Faith, and Rock and Roll,” DePauw University, April 20.
“Revisualizing Religion: Contemporary American Artists and Issues of Faith,” University of Florida, Gainesville, April 12.
1999
“Death Shrines, War Memorials, and Community Murals: Thoughts About Contemporary Public Art at the End of the American Century,” Boston Public Library, November 17.
“Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image,” President's Lecture Series, University of Colorado, Boulder, October 14.
“Paying Tribute: Issues of Race, Class, and Historical Amnesia in Contemporary American Public Art,” University of Kansas, April 13.
“Contemporary American Art and Issues of Spirituality,” Vanderbilt University, January 27.
1998
“Images of Labor in 1930s American Art,” University of Delaware, March 31.
“Contentious Public Art in Contemporary America,” Brigham Young University, February 13.
1997
“Art and Cultural Democracy,” Keynote Address for the Oklahoma Cultural Coalition's 1997 Congress on the Arts and Humanities, Oklahoma City, October 8.
“Contemporary Public Art: Conflict and Consciousness Raising in America's Communities,” University of Arizona, Tucson, April 10.
“Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 21.
1996
“Public Art Controversy and Civic Identity in Contemporary America,” Cultural Development and Marketing Branch, Melbourne, July 5.
“Elvis in the Public Sphere: Fans, Faith, and Cultural Production in Contemporary America,” Power Institute of Fine Arts, University of Sydney, May 28.
“Public Art and Civic Identity in Contemporary America: Andrew Leicester's Cincinnati Gateway,” University of Melbourne, May 16.
“Against the Grain: Looking at the Cultural Context of Joe Jones and J.B. Turnbull's 1930s Murals,” Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, January 19.
“From Benton to Pollock,” American Art Council, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, January 9.
1995
“Working-Class Beefcake: Gendered Representations of Labor in Twentieth Century American Art,” The Wolfsonian, Miami Beach, Florida, June 22.
“Public Art and Cultural Democracy in Contemporary America,” Burke Lecture Series, Departmentof the History of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, March 2.
1993
“From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism,” National Museum of American Art, Washington DC, October 22.
1992
“Civic Culture and Historical Memory,” Department of American Studies, University of Minnesota, March 20.

Professional Participation: Other

2024

Session respondent, “Alphabet Soup Landscapes: Understanding the New Deal Legacy Today,” Society of Architectural Historians Virtual 2024 Conference, September 21.

Author Response, “Spiritual Moderns: A Roundtable Conversation with Erika Doss,” College Art Association 112th Annual Conference, Chicago, February 16.

Co-Chair, “Confronting the Legacy of New Deal Art in the 21st Century,” College Art Association 112th Annual Conference, Chicago, February 14.

2022

Invited panelist, “Arts Philanthropy in Turmoil: The Museum-Industrial Complex,” Tyson Ten Workshop, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, October 6.

Workshop leader, “Cultural Futures: Public Art and Racial Reckoning in 21st Century America,” International Teacher Academy, American Studies, University of Education Vorarlberg, Austria, June 23.

2021

Moderator, “Toppled Monuments Archive: Bearing Witness,” International Sculpture Conference, November 11 (online)

Invited speaker for “Monumental Labor: Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine,” National Park Service public event and podcast, October 28 (online)

Panelist, “The Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier: Vandalism and the Legacy of the Founding Fathers,” for the webinar series “The Lives of Monuments: Memory, Revolution, and Our National Parks,” National Park Service, June 17 (online)

Panelist, “Ivan Meštrović’s Equestrian Sculptures and Public Art in Chicago,” Chicago Monuments Project, Community Partnership Series, May 11 (online)

Panelist, “Monuments and Memory: Deconstructing Power in Antiquity and the Contemporary,” Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, April 29 (online)

Panelist, “Monuments and Memory in America,” New Jersey Council for the Humanities and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, County College of Morris, April 28 (online)

Chair and moderator, “Messy Modernism: Art in 20th Century American Magazines,” Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, Norman Rockwell Museum, April 21 (Webinar online)

Invited participant, 2021 National Park Service/Boston 250th Virtual Engagement Series, February 3, 17-18, 24 (online)

Introduction and moderator to Steven Heller, Keynote Speaker, Picturing Freedom: A Century of Illustration, Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Annual Conference, Norman Rockwell Museum, January 15 (online)

2020-21

Consultant, Templeton Religion Trust Grant, “Art Seeing Understanding,” with Robin Jensen, University of Notre Dame

2020

Panelist, Who Owns Public Art? Program on Intellectual Property & Technology Law, Notre Dame Law School, October 29. (remote)

Invited participant, Falling and Rising: Public Monuments and Cultural Heritage in a Time of Protest, The University of Texas at Dallas, September 2. (remote)

Workshop panelist, “Discoveries in the Life Archives,” for (In)visibilities, Omissions, and Discoveries: Archival Absences in Life Magazine and Beyond, Princeton University, April 30.
Invited participant, “Revelation: A Conversation on Andy Warhol and Religion with Erika Doss and Paula Kane,” The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, January 9.
2019
Panelist, “Authenticity,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Honolulu, November 8.
Moderator, “American Culture,” Staging the Space Between, 21st Annual Meeting of The Space Between Society, Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, South Dakota State University, May 31.
Conference co-organizer, Illustration Across Media: Nineteenth Century to Now, Washington University, March 21-23.
2018
Discussant, “Edgar Miller’s Animal Court at the Jane Addams Homes: Programming and Research,” National Public Housing Museum, Chicago, December 7.
Panelist, “10 That Changed America: Premiere and Discussion of the New Season of the PBS Series,” De Bartolo Performing Arts Center, University of Notre Dame, May 30.
Panelist, “Object Lessons: Do Public Monuments Have a Future?” The Kenan Institute for Ethics and Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University, April 27.
Chair, “Monumental Troubles I: Rethinking What Monuments Mean Today” and “Monumental Troubles II: Rethinking What Monuments Mean Today,” Midwest Art History Society Annual Conference, Indianapolis Museum of Art, April 6-7.
Discussant, “America is [Still] Hard to See: New Directions in American Art History,” Associationof Historians of American Art Session, College Art Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, February23.
2017
Panelist, “Charlottesville, Racism and the Current Crisis in America,” Hesburgh Center, University of Notre Dame, August 25.
Introduction, New York Times correspondent Elisabetta Povoledo, University of Notre Dame Global Gateway Public Lecture Series, Rome, March 27.
2016
Chair, “War & Peace Studies Caucus: Militarizing the Domestic/Domesticating the Military: Home/Not Home in American Military Cultures,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Denver, November 19.
Invited participant, “Scholars Workshop on Chicago Public Art,” Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, April 29.
2015
Docent talk, “Thomas Hart Benton’s America,” Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, November 16.
Gallery talk, “WPA Graphic Works: The Amity Art Foundation Collection,” South Bend Museumof Art, November 6.
2014
Invited participant, “Colloquy on Marsden Hartley and Mysticism,” Amon Carter Museum, August 18-19.
Chair, “Vandalism, Removal, Relocation, Destruction: The Dilemma of Public Art’s Permanence,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, Public Art Dialogue Sponsored Session, Chicago, February 15.
2013
Chair, “Historical Debts and Public Commemoration: Questioning the ‘Good War’s’ Memory and Meaning in Contemporary America,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 24.
Invited participant, “Dead Soldiers Fighting: War Monuments and Memorials Beyond Memory and Representation,” 12th Berlin Colloquium on Contemporary History, European Academy of Berlin, September 20-21.
Gallery talk, “Shaping Public Perceptions: Charles Moore’s Civil Rights Photography in LifeMagazine,” Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, September 4.
Panelist, “Living Through Media: The World Today,” Alumni Reunion “Notre Dame Perspectives” Panel, University of Notre Dame, May 31.
2012
Chair, “Monument and Memory,” American Historical Association 126th Annual Meeting, Chicago, January 6.
2011
Panelist, “Roundtable: Teaching the Introduction to American Studies,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, October 21.
Panelist, “What Should We Remember? Memorials, History, and Human Rights,” Civil Rights Heritage Center/Indiana University South Bend, October 11.
External Reviewer, Program in American Studies, Pitzer College, Claremont, CA, March 9-11.
Commentator, Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise(2009), Seminar in American Religion, Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, University of Notre Dame, February 12.
External Examiner, PhD Viva Voce for Wendy Elaine Ward, The Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin, January 24.
2010
External Reviewer, American Studies Program, Miami University of Ohio, November 11-12.
Chair, “Folk/Outsider/Self-Taught Art,” Association of the Historians of American Art Annual Meeting, St. Francis College, Brooklyn Heights, New York, October 9.
2009
Session Respondent, “Women and Belonging: Gender and Citizenship in the Realm of Public Memory,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 8.
Panelist, “Art in the Public Sphere,” Art Spaces, Inc. and Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, October 2.
Co-Chair, Symposium in Honor of George Rickey, “Abstraction in the Public Sphere: New Approaches,” Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, September 25-26.
Conference Organizer, 11th Annual Conference of the Space Between Society, University of Notre Dame, June 11-13.
Conference Organizer, Imaging America: Great Lakes American Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Notre Dame, March 19-21.
Co-Chair, “Public Art and Pedagogy,” Public Art Dialogue Caucus, College Art Association Annual Conference, Los Angeles, February 26.
External Reviewer, Department of Art & Art History, University of Utah, February 5-6.
2008
Panelist, “Framing Visual Evidence: The Position of Visual and Popular Culture in American Studies,” American Studies Association Annual Conference, Albuquerque, October 18.
External Reviewer, Department of Humanities, Arts, Religion, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, September 8-10.
Steering Committee, Public Art Dialogue, College Art Association Affiliated Society, College Art Association Annual Meeting, Dallas, February 22.
External Reviewer, Program in American Studies, California State University, Long Beach, February 11-12.
2007
External Reviewer, Art History Graduate Program, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, December 10-11.
Panelist, “Why Are There So Few Women Environment Builders?” Taking the Road Less Traveled: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists International Conference, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, September 28.
Moderator, Augustus Saint-Gaudens Centenary Symposium, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., September 7.
Speaker, “Elvis Studies: Coolness, Co-Option, and Community,” Imaginarium, Cornerstone Festival, Bushnell, Illinois, June 27-30.
2006
Co-Panelist with Judy Baca, “Dealing with Cultural Conflict in Art,” Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, Milwaukee, June 4.
2005
Session Respondent, “Figuring Labor: The Body at Work in Early Twentieth-Century Visual Culture,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 4.
Juror, Religion and American Culture Caucus Best-Paper Award, American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 4.
Panelist, “Culture of Age in America,” Libraries for the Future, NEH Consultation Meeting, Centerfor Jewish History, New York, July 19.
Panelist, “Long-Lost Topics in Cultural Geography,” Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Denver, April 6.
External Reviewer, Department of Art, Wabash College, Indiana, April 3-5.
2004
Session Chair, “At the Crossroads of Community and Identity: Artists, Installations, Institutions,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, November 13.
Seminar Discussant, “Memorial Mania,” Center for the Humanities, University of Memphis, November 9.
Panelist, “Comics and American Visual Culture,” Mizel Center for the Arts, Denver, February 8.
2003
Panelist, Breakfast with Champions Series, sponsored by the Students Committee of the American Studies Association, American Studies Annual Meeting, Hartford, October 18.
Co-Chair, “Monuments, Memory, & Modernism,” 12th Annual Front Range Symposium in Art History, University of Colorado, September 26-27.
Panelist, “Contemporary Art and Issues of Beauty,” Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, June25.
Speed Art Museum Collection Handbook Scholars’ Seminar, Louisville, Kentucky, June 16-17.
External Reviewer, Department of American Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, March 5-7.
Panelist, “Self Leadership: Women Succeeding in the Professoriate,” University of Colorado, Denver, February 28.
Panelist, “Lesley Dill: Tongues on Fire, Visions and Ecstasy,” Interfaith Center of New York, New York, February 19.
Panelist, “Bystander: Street Photography & American Visual Culture,” Mizel Center for the Arts, Denver, February 16.
NEH Consultation Grant Panelist for “Home on the Range: Community & Culture in the American West,” Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, January 10-11.
2002
Conference Co-Chair, Rethinking the Visual: New Technologies in the Context of Society and Culture, University of Colorado, September 13-14.
Panelist, “Taking Elvis Seriously: A Panel Discussion on Elvis Studies,” University of Louisville, March 4.
Session Chair, “Urban Space and Landscape in Image and Experience,” Rocky Mountain Interdisciplinary History Conference, University of Colorado, January 26.
2001
Session Respondent, “Monuments and Memory in the Nation's Capital,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 9.
2000
External Reviewer, Department of Art, DePauw University, November 5-7.
1999
Panelist, “Pablo, Albert, and Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Missouri Repertory Theater, University of Missouri-Kansas City, September 12.
Session Chair, “Speculations on Television, Popular Taste, and Cultural Distinctions,” Beauty and Its Discontents Colloquium, The Center for Humanities and the Arts, University of Colorado, March 4.
Lecture, “Elvis and His Fans: Thinking Seriously About Popular Culture,” Office of Parent Relations, University of Colorado, February 26.
Panelist, “Religion and Visual Media,” International Study Commission on Religion, Media, and Culture, University of Colorado, January 23.
1998
Panelist, “Innocence, Isolation, and Eccentricity in Women’s Art,” Mizel Arts Center at the Jewish Community Center, Denver, October 22.
Panelist, Women of the West Museum Planning Meeting, Boulder, September 15-16.
Project Member, “The Visual Culture of American Religions,” Valparaiso University, August 6-9.
Panelist, General Services Administration Art-in-Architecture Program Community Fine Arts Panel, Boulder, March 25.
1997
Dialogue Facilitator, “Art in Public Places,” Colorado Council on the Arts Regional Arts Dialogue, Pueblo, Colorado, November 15.
Session Respondent, “Visualizing a Religious (Re)Public: The Mass Production of Christian Images, 1775 to the Present,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 1.
Project Member, “The Visual Culture of American Religions,” Winterthur Museum, August 7-10.
Moderator, “Art: Civility and Censorship,” Civility and Censorship: Critical Conversation in a Civil Society, Center for Humanities & the Arts, University of Colorado, April 26.
Selection Panelist, Alumni Sculpture Garden Courtyard Design Competition, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 22, July 23, September 12.
1996
Session Chair, “Program Reviews: Process, Assessment, Consequences,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Kansas City, October 31.
1995
Panelist, “Teaching American Studies Comparatively,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, November 10.
Conference Chair, “Looking at Life: Rethinking America's Favorite Magazine, 1936-1972,” University of Colorado, September 14-17.
Panelist, “Art, Music, and Theater Through a Post-War Lens,” ANTA and the American Cultural Dream: A Salute to the Early Years of the American National Theatre and Academy, George Mason University, April 21.
Panelist, “The Search for Legitimacy in the Academy,” Rocky Mountain American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Fort Collins, April 7.
Panelist, “Many Faces-Public Spaces: Defining 'Public' Art in California,” Seventh Annual California Studies Conference, Sacramento, February 4.
Session Co-Chair, “Countering Marginalization in Museum Exhibitions and Collections,” College Art Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio, January 27.
1994
Respondent, “Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman,” The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, March 4.
Panelist, “The Object in the Age of Theory,” Association of Historians of American Art, College Art Association Annual Meeting, New York, February 18.
1993
Conference Co-Chair, Eating for Victory: American Foodways and World War II Conference, University of Colorado, October 8-9.
1992
Conference Chair, Third Front Range Symposium in the History of Art, University of Colorado, September 18-19.
Moderator, “Imaging Ourselves: A Symposium with Carolee Schneemann and Dorit Cypis,” Colorado State University, September 11.
1991
Conference Co-Chair, Second Front Range Symposium in the History of Art, Denver Art Museum and the University of Denver, September 20-21.
Panelist, Art in Public Places Curriculum Planning Conference, University of Southern California, May 17-18.
Panelist, “Andres Serrano's KKK Portraits,” University of Colorado, February 5.
1990
Conference Co-Chair, First Front Range Symposium in the History of Art, Denver Art Museum, September 22.