The Cheeky Scholar
Listen as smart – and cheeky – scholars share their knowledge about culture, art, and history... and bust a whole lot of myths along the way.
The Cheeky Scholar
How a Liberal Arts Education Can Foster Dialogue and Empathy Across the Political Divide
Can learning about art and writing change the way we think? Join us as we explore this question with Caitlin Dalton, PhD, a lecturer at Boston University’s CAS Writing Program. Caitlin skillfully blends art history with writing education to inspire critical thinking among first-year students. On this episode, she shares how she uses contemporary art and social justice themes to spark curiosity and encourage students with diverse viewpoints, including those from STEM fields, to engage deeply with public art around Boston. Through this discussion, we uncover the unique ways art can challenge perceptions and stimulate intellectual and academic growth.
Our conversation goes further to investigate the impact of art on society and the methodologies that might capture its influence. How do artists use their work to provide counter-narratives to pressing issues such as gun violence and the refugee crisis? And can we analyze a painting like a scientist? We examine how interdisciplinary dialogue and ethnographic studies can enhance our understanding of art's reach, even when its effects are not easily quantified. This episode also highlights how art encourages multiple perspectives, offering a more nuanced approach to arguments and societal debates usually seen on the news and social media.
Finally, Caitlin and Lara tackle public narratives around higher education and the concept of safe spaces in academia. We address pundits’ claims that universities are brainwashing Gen Z into woke-ism and cancel culture. Caitlin shows, instead, that the college classroom is crucial in fostering an environment where challenging conversations can thrive without stifling viewpoint diversity. This episode promises an enlightening journey through the intersections of art and education, showcasing their power to shape perspectives, foster empathy, and inspire meaningful dialogue. Don't miss this thought-provoking exploration that underscores the importance of art and academia in our rapidly changing world.
About Caitlin Dalton
https://www.bu.edu/newbury-center/profile/caitlin-dalton/
Gun Violence Memorial, Boston
https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/gun-violence-memorial-project/
Yto Barrada’s art about refugees
https://smarthistory.org/yto-barrada-ceuta-border-illegally-crossing-the-border-into-the-spanish-enclave-of-ceuta-tangier/
Homeless Vehicle project by Krzysztof Wodiczko
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-exquisitely-designed-cart-homeless-people-inspired-wave-artists-activism-180968519/
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Hello everyone, welcome to the Cheeky Scholar. This is the podcast where smart and cheeky scholars share their knowledge about history, art and culture and bust a whole lot of myths along the way. I'm your host, dr Lara Ayad. If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today, and if you've listened before, welcome back.
Lara Ayad:I really enjoyed my conversation with Caitlin Dalton. Together, we talked about her research on the history of art in the German Republic and her career as a writing instructor. I asked Caitlin how she uses her background in art history to teach undergraduate college students to write and think critically. What we uncovered together was fascinating, and the conversation you're about to hear tackled topics like cancel culture, the role of college education in the US and why studying art matters. Caitlin and I handled some heavy-hitter questions like should higher education be giving students safe spaces? Does art give us easy answers to pressing issues, including gun violence? And what role should universities play in our lives when the world seems to get more confusing every day? Many mainstream pundits claim that higher ed is brainwashing Gen Z into adopting extreme leftist views, but Caitlin argues that the university is one of the last bastions of American life where people with opposing political views can disagree publicly, so stay tuned. I think you're going to like this one.
Lara Ayad:Caitlin Dalton is a lecturer at the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program at Boston University. She got her PhD in the history of art and architecture from BU and is originally from Cooperstown in upstate New York. Caitlin loves running marathons, exploring public parks and scoping out bakeries for the city's best pastries. Caitlin, welcome to the Cheeky Scholar. I'm so happy to have you on the show Me too. Thank you for having me. Caitlin, imagine you're walking around your favorite park in Beantown and you run into your worst enemy. What is the most despicable ice cream flavor you would give to them?
Caitlin Dalton:Well, I have a five-year-old and he eats a lot of chicken nuggets, so I think it's a chicken nugget cream. Yeah, ice cream.
Lara Ayad:That's disgusting. Do you think your five-year-old would eat that chicken nugget ice cream?
Caitlin Dalton:no, no, even nothing can touch. None of his food can touch, even without ice cream being involved.
Lara Ayad:But oh my goodness, oh my god. That's so funny because when I was a kid, the only thing that my dad could feed me when I was like four years old was cake and ice cream, so I can kind of identify with this problem.
Caitlin Dalton:Yeah, those are maybe the exception.
Lara Ayad:So okay. So now, caitlin, you are, I know you're you're, you're still have your eyes kind of set on this research, but you also I think this is so interesting about what you do now you teach a writing class at Boston university. So who are your students and what are you teaching them? Are you teaching them art history? Are you teaching them something different? What does the classroom environment look like for you?
Caitlin Dalton:Yeah, so I work with first-year students in the College of Arts and Sciences writing program and we teach across all the colleges, um, and so that's like, and we're, we're a bunch of interdisciplinary faculty and we, so we come from, so I come from art history with lara, um, with you and um and we uh, so we all teach thematic courses. So so we choose the topics, we design the topics and themes and the students mostly take it their first year. Sometimes the second semester they delay, but it's, it's meant as a, you know, first year sequence required. No matter if you've got fives on all your AP lit classes, everyone has to take it. And, yeah, the way that our classes are designed.
Caitlin Dalton:So I teach classes that are on contemporary art or art and social justice in Boston. So my class in particular is very much like about getting students outside the classroom looking at art, public art and exhibitions in museums in Boston and then going back into the classroom and crafting questions and writing analysis as well as more popular public facing writing. But academic writing probably is the major focus of my classes with the second semester is a little bit more heavy on research. So in more crafting, a totally independent project. It does relate to the theme of art in Boston, but it it's like based on a little bit less boundaries for me, more crafting, like connections from the get go from them and then building library research and so on.
Caitlin Dalton:So the second semester is a bit more research heavy. First semester is a little bit more talking about audience and genre and how to talk about analysis and what's the difference between, like, academic writing and, say, a podcast or other forms of expression. So we we do a lot of those kinds of discussions. It's a lot. So the class is not an art history class in the sense that I don't teach like a preordained timeline or content. So much like I'm not lecturing to them, but we do definitely read from art historians. So my assigned readings are largely art historians and then we also will write in the discipline primary. So we'll talk about discipline difference and why, like, for example, so many of them who are engineers, like why they've been taught you know you can't use the first person you have to say this paper will argue and like why we do things differently in different areas. Um, I won't always know from the other areas, but um, it's kind of fun to explore that together.
Lara Ayad:Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like you have a lot of students coming from different backgrounds. Sounds like you have a lot of engineering students. What has their experience been like in your class, where they're focusing a lot on academic writing? They read a lot of stuff from art historians. It's a very different type of focus, very different type of methodology from their own fields. What is that what? What experiences that have been like for them and for you too, as the instructor?
Caitlin Dalton:yeah, I really love it. Um, I think one of the benefits to liberal arts education is having this capacity to have cross-discipline conversations. I think so often we go into like we want to just like identify who we are and that we're not anything else. So it's a real tragedy. We read so many I and I know my colleagues, we read so many like reflections from the beginning of the semester but say something along the lines of I am not a writer, or like I am, I am, I'm more interested in STEM and I do not write and I it's to me that's really sad because they've been told probably something that they are good at one thing and not good at another. But in fact, obviously, writing isn't everything and most people know that, when pushed like they will say, yeah, of course, communication writing is in engineering, is in biology, um and so on. But I think, to get them talking about the transfer of um, what they might do. So we do stuff that is ultra specific, right, which everyone would do in any class, um, but we do look at artworks. We do stuff that is ultra specific, right, which everyone would do in any class, but we do look at artworks, we do write about those artworks, right, but then what is the observation, the staying with something, spending time slowly with something in the space? What is the conversation about it? And the fact that there might be multiple perspectives what is that? How does that transfer to a class where you're doing a lab? I'm sometimes, I guess, in class too. What do you do in lab? I'm not really sure, but you know a class where you're guessing, like, what chemical to use or whatever else you know. I do think there's there's difference, or there's a lot of um, there is difference, but there's a lot of commonality, I think, in the critical thinking, in the like collaboration skills. And another exciting thing is students often will be able to kind of offer interdisciplinary excitement, like this summer, for example. I may have mentioned this to you in our conversation this summer, but I was teaching a smaller the class is already somewhat small, but a smaller class and almost all of my students happen to be engineers and we were talking about a text that has to do with art and politics and ethics, in particular around the issue of the refugee in contemporary art, the like centrality of the refugee, and we're all sort of like having this dialogue about how powerful the works discussed in this article are.
Caitlin Dalton:But also the question that was so resonant is how are, how, how can we quantify the efficacy of this work right?
Caitlin Dalton:How can we quantify how this work changes policy? And it is such a good question, but it is also such a question that is ignored by art historians and it's also really hard, right, how do we quantify that? I'm not really sure, but, like we don't in the discipline of our history, do we center that question of like, like quantifiable data? Some might, I don't think I do, I don't think a lot of people do, and certainly in the crafted narratives that most of the time I'm assigning, that's not a huge part of the writing, but it's a. It's a really important question like are politicians going to these exhibitions? Probably not, right.
Caitlin Dalton:So the question of relevance is still key. I still think I still will push the art matters right, even if we can't, or even if we guess maybe it doesn't have an immediate like okay, this is going to change the way people put governments together, you know, obviously. But I think I think that kind of bigger thinking and that comes from interdisciplinary and collaborative conversations and that's what we have in the writing program, classes probably I don't go to all classes, but I think, more than any other department um, I mean, I just think there's gonna because it's a force, it's a required class and because we're teaching across the class, the colleges it is likely going to give you the most variety of disciplinary like perspectives. Um, because I mean, quite frankly, I think most people choose the classes based on their schedule. So I get just as many people that say they did it for the schedule versus, like, those who care about this, and very few art historians.
Lara Ayad:So yeah, you know this is um, this is interesting because, like so, if I understand correct, this engineering student was like, well, can we quantify what? Can we measure by numbers how effective an artwork is? And say, impacting someone's perspective? Like, like, let's say, you have somebody standing in front of this artwork is looking at it, can he, can we quantify how effective the painting is? And, and, and I'm wondering, did they, did that student maybe offer up a potential like test or a some type of way to maybe test this out? Like, did they have an idea for how that could work? Because that to me, when I hear that, especially because I'm trained in art history the way you are, I'm like, well, wait a second. What do you? What do mean? Why would you try to quantify and measure the impact of something? But for someone, maybe coming from a STEM field, that's just sort of like maybe the first place they go. So, yeah, well, how did you, how did you deal with that in the classroom?
Caitlin Dalton:Well, so I think what it did for me is it did make me appreciate different methodologies, and then we ended up, because it's such a small class, we ended up talking about why that's the go to methodology, for I think this was. I mean, the thing is is actually it was a lot of students, because there was one student who might have brought it up in discussion, but it was Most of the students were curious, and I'm curious about these questions too. I don't have it is. It is a how-to, like a kind of impossibility, but at the same time, it it's a question of access that I think we should be asking, as our historians, like, let's say.
Caitlin Dalton:So this is an article the one we were talking about talks about. Let's see Ito Barada, out of Morocco, her work on sort of a dual French Moroccan citizenship, but with, basically, the privilege of passport right. What does that mean? And it's across, it's global right. The article is really about um, multiple case studies across the globe, but the question of, like, the ultimate humanity that is questioned, um, that is put in question by statehood, by um, by privilege of of nothing more than passport right. So in this case, like in these case studies, and I think, when these artworks offer, if we buy the arguments, like, if they offer this kind of counter narrative to a quick like painting the picture of the refugee crisis that often, so often is kind of collapsed in media, if these artists are kind of offering a pro-human like message around privilege, but also convicting us, who is going to be convicted right are, I think they're asking? These students were asking like okay, but are the politicians from the, in this case, like being more EU, you know, based like um, are the politicians going to these exhibitions? It was an honest question and it is like oh gosh, I don't know um, and I think I think. And then we write about those things.
Caitlin Dalton:So I didn't write this article. Obviously TJ Demos writes this article that we're reading and um, and. But we, as art historians, we write about these things because we think they're important and meaningful. I think that's certainly why Demos does this, and then then it becomes um, like more known, and then I mean, yeah, probably like Biden's not gonna read it, but like the question of of who is the audience? I think is.
Caitlin Dalton:I mean it was challenging for me to hear, even though I've been entrenched in this stuff for so long, but it also, I think, is helpful for them to see my like working out with them, out with them like oh, this isn't the methodology I go to of like quantifying who goes to the exhibitions and what they do with that vision of that work, and I don't think that research is done. I don't think it's super easy to do, but it doesn't mean the question falls away. It's's still a good. I think it's still a good question and I think it's one in which we could probably do more like ethnography and other kinds of studies and incorporate that in in all disciplines Like think about what are what our other colleagues or our students are saying that we might dismiss as like this is.
Caitlin Dalton:I mean, I might be, I might tend toward like that's not a possibility to kind of get into the nitty gritty, but also like it, what you're saying like represents your values and your inquiry and what you might really want to develop and that is worthy, even if it doesn't yield an easy or possible even research project. And this wasn't for their research. This was more reading discussion, right, so it wasn't like doing that research immediately on it.
Lara Ayad:It sounds like that student was thinking on very concrete terms about audience and impact, right, and I think this is, this is this is something that I think the field of art history could. I don't know that we would need to necessarily like put things into numbers all the time, but I have to wonder if some more like humanistic version of that inquiry or that study could benefit art history in some way. Like who is actually seeing these paintings and then what? What are they doing in the rest of their day-to-day lives? Are they then coming home from, say, going to the gallery and writing about it online and then sharing that on Instagram? Are they like not talking about it with anybody at all, unless they go to a coffee shop and meet with a friend?
Lara Ayad:Let's just say Like there's almost seems like if we were to look at like people's behaviors around and all the spaces in the time around encountering an artwork, that might give us something more concrete to hold onto when we say things like Ido Barada's I don't know just as an example Ito Barada's artwork has shifted people's perspectives about, like this issue, right, like that would just be kind of that would be kind of an interesting experiment. Honestly, it sounds like you're having really interesting conversations in your classroom with these students. Is there? Are there any sort of myths or misconceptions about writing or about art that you bust in the classroom or that you help your students? Kind of unveil and see through?
Caitlin Dalton:Yeah yeah, there are a lot of myths, especially think of the first year. Like I mean, even I sometimes will try to remember what I, what I believed when I about writing. And the problem is is I don't know about your undergrad experience, but I didn't have. I feel like I'm I give my students so much that I wish I had because I didn't have. I just had to figure out what an argument was like by reading and hoping for the best, like I didn't like actual clarity and instruction on it. I'm pretty sure I mean I know they might not think they're, I hope I'm clear, but I think one of the things, one of the myths and this is like it relates to making what an argument is or what a claim is, and I would say this is even like a challenge I have. And, speaking of the interdisciplinary aspect of the writing program, like I haven't gotten any.
Caitlin Dalton:I believe we have different approaches to writing, even as faculty and as our and and what an argument is. To a degree we all have a common ground, but I think in art history we craft questions and we often make arguments that will pose the importance of the question, meaning we don't answer the question immediately or like prove points, point after point after point, and the emphasis might not and this is my generalization, I'm curious if you agree on this but in art history, I think it's about like crafting a story, which I think a lot of disciplines have right Crafting a story around a question, but also showing how artwork or artist stories, like how they ask us questions about how the world works or how we relate to things, and kind of offer a new lens. I think a lot of arguments are like strong arguments, are essentially like suggesting that these works through X, y and Z, like they allow us to see this issue differently. You know, I'm obviously collapsing a ton of different arguments, but I think that itself is really hard for students to see as what a claim or an argument is, because they have been taught. I'm guessing. I don't know. I wish I mean I'll know soon enough with my child's, you know, in elementary school now. Um, but what? The testing structure? I, I, kind of, I, I am, uh, I have a hunch it's like has to do with teaching to the test.
Caitlin Dalton:I definitely don't blame teachers, high school teachers, for this, but I think there's, there's a sense of like you prove a point, maybe implicitly, but it's in kind of like you have an opinion, you put your opinion down, agree, disagree, and then you prove it One, two, three and then you have a conclusion, the five paragraph essay and in this kind of and some of that can be really useful, but when it's mistranslated I think it's probably a more of a mistranslation than actual teaching on this. But, as like, come in with your agenda and make an argument for that agenda and that opinion and then prove it with evidence. Okay. So like, not all of that is bad, we do need evidence. Right, the whole idea, like this past example, right, the idea of gathering data, data. That's, of course, a huge part of our, our work and and our process and teaching too in these classes. But I also think, like when, what we're doing now in the early parts of the semester, we're like identifying where does the scholar make an argument and it's so this is so hard for them to see.
Caitlin Dalton:Okay, they, they ask a question and I'm increasingly it's it still strikes me as like surprising that it's so hard, not because I'm blaming the students, but I think it's because it's they are looking for a art should be, like some line in the essay that says like art should be this way, or it art is better when it's this way, or, you know, like something that's like an easy opinion of ranking, or I don't know, because I see it.
Caitlin Dalton:You know, I do see it sometimes replicated in drafts and you know we work to add a little bit more complexity and nuance, but, um, I think, I think that's the myth that I care most about breaking is like can we? And it's it is ultimately related to like holding complexity, which relates back to the story of my dissertation, but like holding that the complexity of an argument can maybe make us more open-minded and allow for counter arguments and ideas or counter examples. I don't even love the word counter argument because then it it has a binary setup and honestly, I think that's the issue is like we already operate in, you know, us versus them, political right versus left, should versus, should not. You know old, new, all these binaries of opposites, and so, um, we've been taught, and students have been taught, how to speak and write in this kind of like, one way versus another. And so this also relates to myth on art right, art already is debunking that, because it's art is almost never binary.
Caitlin Dalton:Um, because we're all approaching it in different ways and when that's happening and then we're writing about it, it can be really frustrating for students. But I think it's exciting to get into this framing of an argument more as an answer, but in a way, the emphasis is on the question. So I'm a really I'm really passionate about the question that drives our work and drives what we read, and for that to be thoughtful and layered and offering multiple perspectives, and the claim to not be fully based in your opinion Opinion matters, of course, but it's not, it shouldn't be, what drives everything and unfortunately I think that is that is what is prioritized in persuasive writing prior to my class.
Lara Ayad:I hope they leave without that assumption, but of course I can do so much what's what's a what's a really good example of some type of artwork or case study you covered with your students that you you saw it as like actually just tackling the question for its own sake is more fruitful than just trying to rush to some type of a conclusion about like is this artwork good or bad, or like art should be this or that way, like what? Is there a particular example that comes to mind for you of where you really saw this play out?
Caitlin Dalton:Oh, there are so many examples but I can I don't yet know with essays because I can just talk about yesterday, since we were talking in class. Class talking about um. We just saw the um, the gun violence memorial, um, which I don't know if it's. It was first in chicago. It's done by the mass design group and with hank willis thomas um as the creative director, but the group designed this memorial. I think it started in 2019, but it was in Chicago, then Washington DC and for six months or not even I think it was August through January, whatever, that is, five months um in Boston. And so I'm, you know, we took, I took the students there last week and we had the discussion yesterday about it.
Caitlin Dalton:Um, and this is a memorial that has. It's a glass. There are four houses, they're all glass houses of, with shelves, so the they say it's glass bricks, but they're sort of shelves that each, each brick, represents a victim of gun violence and what. What's in the. Every week there's 700 people in this country killed by gun violence. Sorry, this is going to get just because of the artwork. It'll get a little bit um darker, sorry, um, but yeah, so um, because of that, they have 700 spaces. Not all of them are filled right now, but you can imagine they could be filled in one week with all these with with memorabilia from the family, donated by families, um, of the their child or it's often, unfortunately, children of um, these, these parents who donate.
Caitlin Dalton:Anyway, the work is very meaning, like it's, it's for sort of obvious reasons, it really resonates and it's poignant and it's heartbreaking and you can walk inside the house. So the one we we saw one of the four houses which is located in city hall in boston right now, um, and the students were talking about their experience and even that, um, you know they're seeing the work as offering. So, like I use the word, like counter narrative. It offers like a really different portrayal of gun violence than likely we hear about and see in the news person, the memory for the family, the connections between us inside this glass space to those works. It's quite, it's quite like I don't know, just really emotionally moving for a lot of us and this is also a really heavy topic to talk about in anywhere.
Caitlin Dalton:But this is, I know, we'll talk to about, like the university and what's the use value of the university now, and this is like exactly where I feel this space is so sacred of the seminar room because students begin to talk about how they were connecting to the jersey on display, like the bulls jersey, or the basketball, um, like the deflated basketball and it's, and so you know, even, and then they would talk about how it relates to these scholars who write about public art and it a couple times I did catch so this would be like a it's not in writing yet, but um, they were saying, like one person said yesterday, like I think art, like so, and so I think was I forget which scholar they were saying, but Shercroft Knight might be the scholars. Shercroft Knight says that art should be this way, like this, um, populist model, or, and so I see this because it should be this, this is better than, and I I'm like is, is Knight saying that it should be, or is she observing that we all take our stories into these spaces of public spaces? So I'm not trying to like, but so obviously like there's a space for that correction which is more related to the scholar than the person's story, about their connection with, like the student's connection. But I think that's where it's like it can be both productive in in the sense of like students realize that their story is one of a really complex, layered approach that the art is prompting us to consider. So they see that in the discussion, I think. I think they saw that. I think we had a pretty good discussions yesterday.
Caitlin Dalton:And then they also see, oh, and when art historians are writing about this maybe it's not that art should be a certain way they're recognizing like a function of what happens when there's multiple ways of interacting with the work. In this case, that's what the the message really was. Um, and I, yeah, I think even in the summary, for example, of the scholar, this particular student was like quick to say that the scholar was like erroneously say that the scholar was prompting a better than worse, than kind of message. But in fact it's when pressed, like we recognize that it might be a little bit more specific and and in that way also we might push against that binary, I hope.
Lara Ayad:Yeah. So you're kind of saying then, if I understand right, caitlin, you're kind of saying that you went to this art exhibition with these glass houses. They have memorabilia of people who have, unfortunately, are lost to gun violence and families have sent in this memorabilia. You're encountering this artwork and then you come back into the classroom to reflect on that and you're basically, if I understand correct, you're basically saying that the students, in some ways they were. They were still kind of misinterpreting art historical, like scholarly work as as making a claim about the value or the rightness of a certain type of artwork. But you're saying that they were kind of slowly starting to see the students were starting to see that these scholars are really more making an observation about the larger meaning of something rather than making a stance about like, oh, artwork should be this way or artwork should do this for people. Am I, am I understanding that right? Yeah?
Caitlin Dalton:I think, cause you asked about, like when we sort of or I think, when the context was that question of making an argument, and I think that's the most recent example where it wasn't. It was more of a summary of another person's ideas and argument. But I think, yeah, I mean this scholar is not talking. It was more of a summary of another person's ideas and argument. But I think, yeah, I mean this scholar is not talking. This was a more dated piece of writing, like it wasn't. I think it's a book, a chapter in a book, but it wasn't about the artwork. So it was, the student was working, I think, very well and hard to connect a concept, but just the language that we, that we, I think I mean it is like it might sound like I know so much more, but I think in other areas of my life I'm quick to say, like they're saying or I'm saying we should do this, we should. It was like very typical of our rhetoric to go to binaries and I think, or just say that, to say that something should be, or rankings, and like something's better than another and that's. I don't see that happening in strong art, historical scholarship. I don't see that happening in the things I've assigned, um, and yet we still look for it or we make up that it's actually happening in the writing. But then I'm also saying but the student is very clear on having this multiplicity and complex experience with her fellow students in the artwork.
Caitlin Dalton:So it's really exciting to me to have teaching about writing, which itself I hope to be a really complex and layered thing. Make sense is contradictions, but this idea of like we're. It's easier for a lot of us to grasp the capacity for layers when we have a discussion and we also encounter artwork with other people, because we see it happening in real time. Right, and that happens, I think, in an exhibition like. And that happens, I think, in an exhibition like. Fiorlai Baez's work was on view at the ICA last year. We all went in my class last year and that also offered all the works are quite complex, the paintings, mostly paintings, some installation, I mean. So then, like they, they are immersed in the complexity of the artwork while at the same time beginning to approach writing arguments that might allow for more complexity, but with clarity and simplicity in language.
Caitlin Dalton:I mean, it's so complicated even explaining it, but I think the art essentially offers a access point for really good conceptual questions that excite us in person, in our presence, with the artwork. And then you know, we don't it's not a direct translation to writing, but like when we can hold that um and we also are making arguments. Maybe we become a little bit more open. I hope it's my philosophy.
Lara Ayad:yeah, it sounds like the a lot of the contemporary artwork in particular that you're having your students look at and write about. It seems much more concept. Well, not I don't want to say literal, but these depictions that are meant to be very realistic and have some almost photographic realism, portraying say Stalin or Lenin, or the happy worker, the happy peasant, I mean, what do you? It kind of seems like contemporary art now and maybe this is my because I would focus more on like modern art from the very early 20th century that tended to have a little more of a direct message in the artwork, albeit, you know, you could interpret those works in different ways, and that's something that I've studied in my own research in the past. But it kind of seems like contemporary art is just very conceptually heavy and almost a bit abstract, not in terms of style but in terms of like, how the artwork is demanding the viewer, the audience, interact with it. Would you? Is that something that you agree or disagree with or like? What do you think of that?
Caitlin Dalton:I do think I do think that's a character of a lot of contemporary art. I don't think it defines all contemporary art, but I think that's a character of a lot of contemporary art. I don't think it defines all contemporary art, but I think that's absolutely the reciprocal relationship between us as viewers and the artwork, sometimes also the artist, right, I mean that's a whole other, probably another podcast, like what's the role of the artist in this? Because I think they're increasingly asked to be like a public figure, which is, I think, unfair to the poor artists. But, um, but I, but I do think the art, regardless of that aspect of it, the artwork and the viewer to kind of make meaning together, it's, it's like I, I believe that is happening a lot. I think, um, I think art, especially I, public art itself, is already going to have this like I mean, we were talking about public art for the first paper in this class, so, and this kind of this work is a little bit like I mean I think it's public art but it's also inside a building, so it's a little bit less the same as like a mural or a memorial outside, but, um, anyway, it has a an extra resonance of like viewer involvement because there's so many different kinds of people. They don't you don't go to a museum, like you're not, like you don't have that interface of like I'm going to see art all the time, and so it has like an extra resonance of that.
Caitlin Dalton:I think a lot of artists are also, like, very aware of the multiplicity of people that will interact with their work and I think they use that as a tool a lot of times. Like that is a tool for actually adding meaning. At least that's what I see, at least that's what I see. Obviously it can get scary, because the public is not always, always who you want to be working with, depending on the people. Like you know, you don't always there's going to be hate and there's going to be all sorts of people interacting with the work. But I think, yeah, I do find that to be a character I don't that to be a character I don't want to say defining of contemporary art. I think there were plenty of modernists that wanted viewer involvement. But, yeah, there is a little bit more of a at least the way we frame it as our historians, because I do it too, like it's more a sort of more direct message, like you said yeah, yeah, yeah, you know there's.
Lara Ayad:Oh, go ahead. No, no, go ahead, go ahead I.
Caitlin Dalton:I remember we used to use this text that by Terry Smith on. It's called like our contemporaneity, with a question mark, um, and I think one of the one of the lines in the text is like because there's no defining of contemporary art, there's like a big, big message there's no one definition. That's like itself problematic. But he does say like art, contemporary art, something along the lines of like contemporary art is above all a question, and I think that's it, like it's, it's this, that's what we're talking about, right, this like back and forth that I think a lot of artists kind of use to their advantage too.
Lara Ayad:That's. You know, I find myself both admiring the idea that contemporary art is contemporary art essentially poses a question and doesn't really give you an answer, like, on the one hand, it's a cool goal, but on the other hand, there's a part of me that's thinking, in this day and age, when people are so politically polarized and when people are so, I think they're really like seeking an answer to an answer to big questions and big problems they're having in their lives, in part because, quite frankly, I mean a lot of our, a lot of our kind of more established institutions are not always giving us the things that we need. Like, our healthcare system in the U? S is broken and politicians cannot always be trusted. And, of course, the idea that politicians lie is not a new idea. It's been around for a while.
Lara Ayad:But there's just there's been a breakdown of of a lot of public faith in larger like institutions and government, even like education and universities. And I'm wondering I I'm going to just throw this out here to you, caitlin, which is like I'm wondering how much people might find themselves frustrated with when they encounter contemporary art, in part because they just want to have a clear sense of, like, what is right and what is wrong in this world that is starting to feel increasingly chaotic, at least in terms of like? We can't rely on the same baseline values or the same structures that we used to be able to rely on. At least, that's how people are feeling, right. I wonder what you think of that.
Caitlin Dalton:No, I think. I think it's a good question, like, or a good dilemma that I relate to too, um, and and I I really don't want to say like everything's wishy-washy and all people, no matter what their views, like or like, whatever they say, and that it's all the same, like there's two we can go too far with this, um, and I think, but I, but I also would say I have a hard time thinking somebody would look for, and I mean, we're looking for answers, but do we look for answers? We're going to mediate those answers based on our own experience, right, so like, I think art can do that and is doing that, but it's not in the same way that like, but it's not in the same way that like, um, you you should do this this way, right, or you should feel this way about this way, or like, and there is persuasive writing that is very strong and and opinion-based, but but very much rooted in lots of examples and um data and all of that, and that is very much an important part of helping us figure out our beliefs and and approaches and actual policy change and all that. I think. I think artwork does occupy a different space and I think it can help us connect to our stories that matter in negotiating our. So it's like we could negotiate our beliefs on something and then we also could like look for an ant like a tangible answer to something which some art might do. But like I'm thinking of the example of uh.
Caitlin Dalton:Do you know christoph vodichko, the? He was a. He's a public artist. Um, he does a lot of work with projection, like the use of projection onto monuments, but he also did this project called the homeless vehicle project in I don't know, I've heard of this.
Lara Ayad:I might have heard of it, but I'm not that familiar like an image or you know, whatever it does, yeah yeah, I think we like did in contemporary art at BU, so that might be.
Caitlin Dalton:Maybe I had to teach it. Um, I think that's the first time I encountered it, but it's this, it's this project. It's one of his earlier like. It's definitely not a super recent work, but he worked with the homeless or the unhoused population in New York and actually asking what do you need Like, what would be a practical like we're going to design? We're going to design like these structures for you, because he'd see like people pushing carts right, collecting bottles and so on. So he worked with the unhoused population. He and a few other artists did this and so it was like a collaborative project on like use, value of what.
Caitlin Dalton:But the whole point and the publicity of this work was to say this can only go so far. Like it is insane that an artist is like I get like chills thinking about this project because it is insane that an artist is proposing solutions to something that the government is ignoring, like that is that and that I think that's what's happening with Ito Barada's work and other artists who are actually really working toward like exposing a problem, because I don't think art can solve problems and I don't think that is a. I mean, I don't think it's doing that directly. I think what it often can do is help us recognize a problem in a new way and in a more human way.
Caitlin Dalton:And I think with that project, with Wodiczko's project, it's like to see these, this artist, working and working with the unhoused population, working with these people who have been so dehumanized but also are not given any kind of solution, and then the solution is so futile because it's an artist project which is like self-consciously futile, right, but then um, but then what it does is like more people are angry that like god, like an artist is trying to figure this out because we haven't done anything, you know, so it does.
Caitlin Dalton:I mean, I'm not this would be another good thing with, back to the point of like, this actually might be a project where you could do some data. Maybe the research was really, you know, in terms of like, what actually changed. But I do see this, as I do see art as relevant to exposure and to learning, maybe more than like obvious immediate change or it's all related, right, but I think, or answers, um, but I think we see things anew through art and I think, I think that's where I would say like we're going to come to that work right, or we came like in my classes yesterday. You know I have four classes in a row.
Lara Ayad:Oh my gosh, you've got a full load on your plate, yeah.
Caitlin Dalton:But like, so we're all talking about the, we're all talking about the Embrace 2, which is the memorial to Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King in Boston Common, and we're also talking about gun violence memorial and like we sort of like we have this, this sort of understanding, in new lens and there's not an answer, but there is a new perspective on gun violence. That might be like we're not talking in class about. Gun violence is a mental health issue. No, it's a gun control issue. Like that is important to have those debates, but that's not the issue at stake with the artwork, right, the artwork is like these are human beings, these are my, these are my children, right, like for these families of um, and this is what I want to present, and how does that offer something different? And I think we then take that. So, like me and the 70 students I met with yesterday of and this is what I want to present, and how does that offer something different? And I think we then take that. So, like me and the 70 students I met with yesterday, like we take that and we we are weighing that against our own stories and what does that do in terms of our like I think what that does for a lot of people is, I don't know, I already have, like, I do have views on gun control, right, I have very strong views, right, it doesn't change those views, but what it does is make me ultra, like, more committed to recognizing the human underneath the stories, right, and maybe more frustrated that we don't focus on that in other forms of media.
Caitlin Dalton:So I think that's when what art can do is it like helps us recognize our own, like the absences that we can like the absences in the other forms of of expression that we consume, for example, like not seeing the humanity of the victim of gun violence, but focusing on the corpse. You know, focusing on the like media is going to focus on the killer, the, the corpse, the event itself, and we're not doing that in this artwork. We're focusing on the lives change, like and I I mean maybe this is utopian hope, but but I do think like, if, if people are really obsessed with pushing their agenda um on, for example, like, I mean I'll take the easier option of like we don't need to control guns, it's we have control. You know, when people say this, like we just need to um control people, or it's the people that kill people. You know, like this, this, this rhetoric that goes around and it's like okay, and these are the people that are killed, right, like maybe that maybe this artwork shows shows that, anyway, that was a long way of saying I think.
Caitlin Dalton:I think there may be not going to be answers, but I do think there's more clarity to things through art, and that clarity is always going to be weighed against all the other messaging we have, but it might. It might line up or shift or actually help us define our values, and I think that's what's really exciting about, and I I don't think it's only contemporary art, but you know, it's what I work on, so, or what I I don't teach the work I I write about.
Lara Ayad:So, speaking of messaging Caitlin, um, I've heard quite a bit on social media, heard quite a bit on social media, sometimes the news media, different public narratives about higher education, and there seems to be this, this narrative going on that I've seen like on Twitter and and and news media and things like that, that higher education and universities are this kind of like toxic space where young people are getting brainwashed, that it's politically brainwashing students or perhaps you know, at the least it's a waste of resources. What do you think of these types of claims? I mean, I know that that's kind of setting things up because you teach in the writing program at BU, so obviously you must believe somehow in the value of higher education. But could you elaborate on, like, what is it about these public narratives that perhaps gets the truth wrong? Or what is it about these messages about academia being toxic and brainwashing that you think are just? They just are off the mark, and why?
Caitlin Dalton:Yeah, yeah. What if I said like, oh no, they're right on the mark. I do, I do believe. Yeah, I very much hear about higher ed being a waste or toxic or just political brainwash. Brainwashing, I think it's. It's like, I think what it is. These are also what.
Caitlin Dalton:What is completely important for us to remember is who is saying this? Have they benefited from higher ed? Like, especially if we're looking at politicians like, these are people with likely not only undergraduate degrees but law degrees or something else, and you know it's like such a harness for pitching, you know, especially in the political realm. And of course, other people say and some critique I think is valid, especially the expense of higher ed is, and some critique I think is valid, especially the expense of higher ed is. And BU is no joke, I think it's. The sticker price is something like $90,000. It's insane and we get as faculty everyone should know. I especially humanities and writing. I mean I'm a lecturer, so it's the lowest end of any kind of pay, so we do not get any of that money really, but I think so.
Caitlin Dalton:Yeah, I mean I think there is a issue of funding for education. That is a value system that I think should be reassessed in the United States when, especially like public universities, even they are costing a lot of. I mean, boston University is private, but even public universities are just inaccessible by many too, and so we have to do something about that. I do not know the economics enough to really go into that, but there is an access point that I think is prohibitive for a lot of families, access point that I think is prohibitive for a lot of families and that should just be on everyone's like. We should push for more access. And and then the other question around around, like, yeah, political toxic toxicity. I just think it's um, yeah, I mean, I think higher ed. So we've talked a lot about these productive conversations.
Caitlin Dalton:I think that I believe I hold, I believe all my colleagues hold. There are, of course, classes that are more, that are also really important, that are more like practical, skills-based um, and hugely relevant to various disciplines and industries that students are going to go into. That might happen in like a trade school, or could happen maybe in another kind of environment apprenticeship but the space of the university, maybe, especially the liberal arts university, where you have multiple disciplines at play at the same time. Students are required to take classes across disciplines. I think what this offers is an opportunity to experiment with collaboration that is supportive. It's not always. I was going to say the word safe, and I don't love that word, either because I don't think all people feel safe, or we should force them the word safe, and I don't love that word, either because I don't think all people feel safe, or we should force them into feeling safe.
Lara Ayad:And I have what do you? Yeah, can you tell me more about that, caitlin? Because I've heard terms like safe space thrown around, especially in like the higher ed and university settings a lot, and I have my own opinions about the utility of that and whether or not we should even be making people feel safe all the time in the sense that they mean it. What do you? What do you think of that?
Caitlin Dalton:so I I do think it's important to recognize, uh ways in which we are shoring up marginalizations and uh ostracizing people, and it's really hard to recognize that, especially if you're in power, especially if you're in a privileged like as historically or currently as privileged group, which I am as a white woman, right, like not as a woman necessarily, but as a white person and I think I want to recognize that I might be ignoring, like either dialogue or issues that could be really hard, or re-traumatizing some issue. I think that happens and I think so we know of cancel culture. I think that is that is very much present too, and I think there's a fear of saying anything. This is not just among students but among faculty, and I think that does happen. So there is like, so this is and I think you know this is what what the political right sort of criticizes of the, the woke culture of the they call it this, like this fake safe space or whatever the critiques are.
Caitlin Dalton:I I genuinely think there is an importance in fostering a space in which students feel, I feel as a faculty like, I feel able to have hard conversations. It has to be collaborative, and that's the part where I think we're not talking about that enough. I think it's happening where the students are involved in what kinds of things they want to do in class in terms of dialogue, in terms of pushing, you know, hard topics in terms of what is OK, what's not OK, these kinds of boundaries. I actually think those conversations should happen in every classroom. But where the students have ability to add to that those parameters, then it becomes work obviously for all of us to actually like implement those ideas. And I might also come like you I sounds like I come from a an encouragement. I want to encourage hard conversations when those hard conversations can happen, because where else can they happen? I think, in the seminar space in particular. This is this, is the this we have the capacity to push ourselves and each other to consider multiple perspectives, to consider stories that might not align with, like everything that's easy for us and that's, I think, crucial to do. I actually really really want to encourage that and I generally see that also encouraged among the classes I've had in recent years.
Caitlin Dalton:I think there just as much like there are ways in which and for example, yesterday I did say you know, if this topic of gun violence is especially personal to you, if it's really hard to talk about, we're still going to talk about it. But if you need to mentally to you, if it's really hard to talk about, we're still gonna talk about it. But if you need to mentally disengage because it's overwhelming, if you do need to leave the room, like we can, like that's fine, right, and I think I could, you know, I could have had a student say it's inappropriate to even talk about this like, but I don't think it's inappropriate to even talk about this like, but I, I don't think it's inappropriate to talk about right, um, I do think we need to have those conversations and I, you know, I hope that we can push a reasonable um, like reasonable ideas around safe spaces. I, I don't even, and my classes I say like safe enough, it's safe enough to have.
Caitlin Dalton:I think I think it's also just a lie, like for us to believe we're going to be our full safe selves, like the same person we are in all spaces, in a public space where we know, you know, there's going to be people with vastly differing views who some of them might be really opinionated Like I mean, I still won't feel safe doing that, even as the instructor sometimes. So I don't think we need to have the pretense that everyone has to be vulnerable, 100% vulnerable at all times and 100% themselves and exposed and also overprot. Protection can go too far and I I think I think it's been okay.
Lara Ayad:but I mean reading news about professors being totally canceled for showing a work of art, even when they give a like preface it with, I mean I get frustrated by these things and by and by canceled you know we're talking about cause I've seen some of these stories too, caitlin by canceled we're talking about like being suspended from their job or maybe even being let go, even sometimes when they have tenure already, which is supposed to be a form of job security and that still is not. It's not a guarantee anymore of being able to stick around, when it seems like in some of these cases, professors are genuinely trying to like show something in order to have the difficult discussion, but it seems like sometimes students misinterpret that as this person's trying to hurt me. It's like no, actually this person has good intentions of being like hey, we've, our past is not politically correct. Our reality is not politically correct.
Caitlin Dalton:We've got to confront it head on, and so we're gonna read and see things that are completely like in the world, like completely outlandish and offensive, and when can we debrief that? Of course, I think we need some framing. As instructors and as the university at large, we need to frame things um ahead of time and after, of course, really important afterwards, like um to be able to facilitate productive discussions. And I think and this while we're talking about this sort of negative side of um, of cancel culture, which happens in the university just as much as it does anywhere else I think I do think the university is the space like to your question about the, the use value of the university, especially the liberal arts university like I really don't see the facilitated convert. I just can't imagine that sort of facilitated conversation that respects I mean ideally right respects and listens, or like fosters listening and dialogue rather than like debating all the time.
Caitlin Dalton:I don't see that happening outside of that of the university, in that many spaces Like, of course, some dinner tables, some faith communities, like I believe it happens somewhere else, but I think, especially in this pivotal time of moving from, you know, being 18 into the world, I think this is a really important time to actually have like, like have these spaces of of dialogue that sometimes is uncomfortable, I think, meaning somebody said it like if you don't feel uncomfortable, it's not I'm not doing my job, right?
Caitlin Dalton:There is that sense of like. We need to be challenged, we need to think about like all these artworks are also challenging us, right. We also, then, need to be thinking in community with others, because if we don't, what will happen is we go to the workplace and we just stay in, stay with people that are like-minded and possibly move into extremism, especially if we're more and more isolated. I don't, I I think the university is an antidote to some degree, um, to extremist thought and, um, while it's claimed, you know, while the rhetoric is spewed about it being one-sided, it probably has the, especially if we consider students and faculty like quite a wide variety of perspectives as opposed to other industries.
Lara Ayad:So yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, that's a really that's a really great way of putting it, caitlin, and I think that's a fascinating perspective and it almost sounds like the university and its actual practice brings people together with different kinds of perspectives and it's one of the few places where you can have these difficult conversations, but in a way that everyone understands like I'm not going to cancel you, you're totally fine, no one's going to act violently, you know things like that. At least that's the, that's the hope and, generally speaking, that tends to be the case. But, yeah, like you're totally right. If you think about it, what other kinds of places in people's lives do they have to have a difficult conversation? That is where they can be exposed to other perspectives in a way that's relatively secure and stable and there's a mutual understanding. Not very much, especially the more and more people.
Lara Ayad:I think the more and more people are on social media on their phones and like watching news and there's this like 24 hour news feed. Now, man, like it just seems like universities are actually, ironically enough, are one of the last bastions or arenas where people can actually have these really productive conversations and interact with people who have very different perspectives and ways that are maybe meaningful or life changing. So, yeah, I really really appreciate that perspective that you're sharing about this and this has been such a great conversation and it's been a lot of fun like hearing, kind of like in a more podcast format, like about your experiences, your research, what you're doing in the classroom, your students and like what they're bringing to the table and the meaning of universities and the meaning of a higher education. So I want to thank you so much for the time and insight that you've given for this episode and thank you so much for being on the Cheeky Scholar.
Caitlin Dalton:Oh, thank you, Laura, and likewise I'm so excited for this shedding light and humanity among the humanity and various other things. So thanks for this project that you're doing, too, in this conversation.
Lara Ayad:Yeah, yeah, awesome, all right, well, thanks a lot, caitlin, and take care for now. And yeah, thanks for being here. Thank you All right, bye, wonder what professors yak about? After a couple of beers, point that monkey digit at your phone and hit the subscribe button. You'll get the newest episodes delivered right to your favorite podcast app. Thanks for joining us on the Cheeky Scholar and until next time, keep it real and keep it cheeky.