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Steven Hoelscher, Stephanie Zeller

Pictures at an Environmental Exhibition: Reflections on the Art of Photography Curation

During the 2023–24 academic year, we worked together at the Harry Ransom Center, a major humanities research center and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, to organize "Visualizing the Environment: Ansel Adams and His Legacy." The exhibition, which ran from late August 2024 through early February 2025, presented Adams's photographs in a broad historical and geographical context that drew from our shared but distinct perspectives. During the process of working on this exhibition, we have often reflected on the experience of conceiving, researching, and presenting photographs in a way that is both visually striking and intellectually invigorating – in short, on the art of photography curation. In this article, we share some of those reflections, as we discuss the relationship between creative work, scholarship, and museum collaborations. Critiquing an exhibition is not the same as creating it, even though we have sought to bring our scholarly experience into our complementary roles as exhibition curator and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) creator.

Ingrid Gessner, Angelika Ilg

Introduction: American Studies in the Classroom – Arts, Culture, and Critical Pedagogy

This introduction situates the special issue's central premise that artistic and aesthetic practices offer powerful pedagogical tools for critical inquiry in American studies. Framed by the field's interdisciplinary traditions and its ongoing epistemic transformations, the introduction reflects on how classroom practices can foster analytical, emotional, and ethical engagement with cultural materials. It also highlights the political stakes of teaching US history and culture in a moment marked by curricular debates, book bans, and renewed challenges to critical scholarship. The articles collected here present innovative approaches that expand the interpretive possibilities of American studies pedagogy across classrooms, analog and digital media, as well as public spaces.