Pedagogical Spaces for Women's History Part I

CAA Conversations

A two part in-depth dialogue about creating inclusive pedagogical spaces to present and teach women’s history with Jenevieve DeLosSantos, assistant teaching professor of art history and director of special pedagogic projects at Rutgers University and Ashleigh Coren, women’s history content and interpretation curator at the National Portrait Gallery and acting head of education for the Smithsonian’s American women’s history initiative. In part 1 of this conversation, Coren discusses the importance of engaging with the wide spectrum of art practices by women artists and developing critical pedagogical strategies to facilitate culturally responsive teaching, to approach difficult conversations around race, gender and class and support educators attempting to provide more inclusive content. Part 2 expands the conversation to include additional pedagogical strategies to open up teaching women’s histories to broader audiences, set up community norms, manage the approach to difficult traumatic topics that could be triggering, empower communities to help tell broader stories and address the erasure of certain communities. Ashleigh D. Coren is the acting head of education for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative and the Women’s History Content and Interpretation Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, where she focuses on collections research, student and teacher programs, and public programming. Previously, she was Special Collections Librarian for Teaching and Learning at the University of Maryland, College Park and an adjunct lecturer in the university’s College of Information Studies. She holds a BA in Art and Visual Culture from Bates College, and an MS in Archives Management from Simmons University. She has held previous positions at West Virginia University and Emerson College and in 2018 she was named an ALA Emerging Leader. Her writing has been published in The Journal of American Folklore, Viewfinder: Reflecting Upon Museum Education, and the International Review of African American Art. Jenevieve DeLosSantos is Associate Teaching Professor of Art History and Director of Special Pedagogic Projects in the Office of Undergraduate Education for the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, New Jersey. In her dual role, she teaches art history and manages several programs related to teaching and learning and diversity, equity and inclusion in undergraduate education. Her research focuses on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Art History and explores topics related to trauma-informed pedagogy and equitable, inclusive teaching practices in the art history classroom. Her current projects include, guest editing the series “Hard Lessons: Trauma, Teaching, Art History” for Art Journal Open and the forthcoming book Poetries – Politics: A Celebration of Language, Learning and Art with Rutgers University Press. Her other scholarly interests include nineteenth-century American Orientalism and more broadly, race and imperialism in nineteenth-century visual culture.