Class Visits to the Hood Museum of Art
The Dartmouth Hood Museum of Art is a world-class art museum situated at the heart of Dartmouth's campus. As a Hood Museum intern, I am obviously a huge fan of the museum, and I seize any opportunity to visit! Luckily, most Dartmouth students visit the museum at least once every term through one or more of their classes. For me, this term was no exception. My Anthropology of Tibet and Himalayas (Anthropology 32) class took me to the museum twice during the term!
During the first visit, a museum curator (and also the intern program director whom I know well) picked out about a dozen pieces of art from Tibet, Nepal and China that enhanced what we were learning about in class. Though class is helpful in teaching about historical events, nothing compares to seeing a historical event depicted on a tapestry or painting like we saw. Most of the museum curators have PhD's in art history, so they are typically experts on the pieces we see.
For the second visit, we were lucky enough to meet with a photographer with photos in the Hood's collection who also was our professor's friend. The photographer, James Nachtwey, was a Dartmouth graduate and did prolific work in Nepal right after the 2015 earthquake. Seeing his pictures was one thing, to talk with him about his experience in Nepal was a completely different experience. By hearing from him and his process, I was able to understand why his pictures were black and white and that some photos were even taken on his cell phone! Beyond that, I was able to hear from a first-hand witness about the effects of the earthquake that a textbook could never teach.
Overall, I am so grateful to my professor for taking us to the Hood for two classes! Professor Craig, you are so awesome!