One of the most effective methods for teaching social studies events, concepts, and issues incorporates the fine arts into lesson plans. The fine arts, such as photography, architecture, paintings, tapestries, and sculptures reflect the core cultural values, political ideals, and religious beliefs of a civilization and offer excellent…

An act of atrocity is an act of violence that is perceived to exceed the boundaries of what a legitimate punitive measure--either against an individual or a collective group of people-would be for retribution for the unjust infliction of an injury. Atrocities are enacted, experienced, witnessed, and translated. They take multiple forms. What makes…

As part of a U.S. Department of Education grant to expand Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Albright College, the authors of this article, one a historian and one an artist, teamed up to teach a course called Revolutions: Art and Revolution in Latin America. In the class, they proposed to combine a studio art printmaking class with Latin…

Artists today draw on a range of sources--newspapers, magazines, photographs, film, audio, and of course the Internet--to create artworks that serve as visual "texts" of a specific place and moment in time. Using artworks as sources and understanding how to decode them in the service of "drilling down" into difficult topics can create powerful…

"The Problem We All Live With" is one of Norman Rockwell's most famous, and provocative, images. First printed in the January 14, 1964, issue of "Look" magazine, the image features an approximately six-year-old African American girl walking. She is wearing a white dress, white socks and white shoes. Her hair is parted in neat…