Courses

This bridge seminar studies the history of childhood, through a 2022 Boston Institute of Contemporary Art exhibition.  To Begin Again was planned to consider how we imagine childhood in our present moment.  How do 20 of today’s major artists, many of whom are parents, and belong to an inclusive range of backgrounds, represent the beginnings of human life?  Now, the socially stratified consequences of Covid-19 on families and education are also at stake.

Due to Covid-19, the timing of the ICA exhibition has allowed an interval in which to re-think what exhibition programming might consist of, in light of the exhibition’s subject, and recent history.  Thanks to a Harvard Radcliffe Institute grant, a virtual seminar will convene museum, childhood and education experts to discuss best practices and new possibilities.  Students will attend the workshop as well as an artist’s talk, and meet with the exhibition curator, as well as several museum education professionals, to understand how a museum exhibition comes into being.  Assignments will include practicing aspects of research and writing necessary to a successful exhibition.

A crucial resource and practicum for the seminar will be a website of the museum programming seminar, funded and managed by the Harvard, Radcliffe Institute, to which seminar graduate students will contribute.

This seminar requires long reading assignments at the start of the semester, professional interactions with eminent scholars, and independent work in the second half of the semester.  It is therefore suitable only for the most advanced undergraduates.