Ivan Gaskell attended the 74th annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics in Seattle, November 16-19, where he delivered a response, “Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism and Ethical Overload,” in the session “Appreciation.”

Deborah Krohn gave a talk at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, on November 11, entitled “Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera: The First Illustrated Cookbook.” Her book, Food and Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: Bartolomeo Scappi’s Paper Kitchens, is available from Routledge.

Paul Stirton presented a lecture on “Graphic Propaganda in the First World War” at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, on November 14. Afterwards, prospective students joined him and area alumni at an information session on Bard Graduate Center’s master’s and doctoral programs.

Catherine Whalen was chair and commentator for the session “American Outsiders and the Material Culture of Home” at the Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA), Home/Not Home: Centering American Studies Where We Are, held in Denver, November 17-20. Whalen’s session was sponsored by the ASA’s Material Culture Caucus and organized by Andrea Quintero, who earned her master’s degree at Bard Graduate Center in 2006 and is now a PhD candidate in the American Studies Program at Yale University.

Participants also included members of the Consortium for American Material Culture (CAMC), initiated by Dean Peter N. Miller at Bard Graduate Center in 2007. The all-CAMC member panel, “The Artifact’s (Home) Place in American Studies: Material Culture Pedagogy, Objectives, Curriculum,” was organized by William Moore, associate professor and director of the American & New England Studies Program at Boston University. The panelists were Katherine G. Grier, professor and director of the PhD program in American Civilization and the Museum Studies Program at the University of Delaware; Ann Smart Martin, professor of art history at the University of Wisconsin; and David Brody, associate professor of design studies at The New School/Parsons. For the session “Material Culture of Home-Making: Desire, Fantasy, and Possibility in the American Interior.” Another CAMC member, Sarah Anne Carter, curator and head of research at the Chipstone Foundation, presented on “Mrs. M.——-’s Cabinet: Truth, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction in the 21st-Century Museum,” a new installation in the Chipstone Galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Bard Graduate Center and the Chipstone Foundation are midway through a five-year collaboration designed to provide students with opportunities to explore the Foundation’s collections and create their own exhibitions, including Behind the Glass and Introspective: Contemplations on Curating.