Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies
- Department Art and Art History
- Academic Division The College
- Offerings Minor
This multi-disciplinary minor allows students to complete work in the departments of art history, chemistry, classics, history, and sociology and anthropology. Required coursework introduces students to aspects of cultural heritage and museum studies including looting, trading, marketing, unearthing, conserving and curating.
Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies
Students take innovative courses with small class sizes that are led by dynamic professors. W&L’s Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies courses prepare students to engage critically and ethically with cultural institutions. The minor affords student the opportunity to handle artwork and curate their own art exhibitions on campus.
About the Department
This minor reflects a broad set of concerns related to how we think about and treat cultural heritage objects and sites. In the 21st century, museum institutions — whether historic sites and battlefields, museums of science, art or natural history — stand at an intersection between education and cultural diplomacy where thorny issues about ownership, repatriation, preservation, tradition and looting are often very publicly debated. Courses of this minor relate to issues of ethical treatment of cultural heritage concerning the manipulation, production and destruction of objects and sites in pursuit of generating specific narratives of history and cultural identity. Through course work and experiential learning, the CHMS minor provides students the opportunity to examine both the theory and practice of cultural heritage and the museum world.
Internships and Awards
Summer internship in museum work: The Department of University Collections of Art and History offers an eight-week paid summer internship. The program provides students with an introduction to basic museum policies and practices through hands-on experience with the collection including: accessioning, cataloging, proper storage methods, research, database management and loans. After eight weeks, students will leave the program with a basic understanding of the major curatorial and administrative issues all museums face, regardless of the different types of collections they possess.
Thomas V. Litzenburg Award: The Thomas V. Litzenburg Award was created by the Reeves Center in 2004. The award is made annually, at the discretion of the University Collections staff in consultation with the Art Department or another relevant department, to the student who submits the best paper on artwork in the Collections. This annual prize is named in honor of Thomas V. Litzenburg Jr., Class of 1957, and former director of the Reeves Center.
Positivity Meets Personal Connections
Mariam Drammeh ’25 has approached research, internships and campus involvement with an eye toward a future rooted in service to others.
Sandy de Lissovoy is the Next Speaker in the Anne and Edgar Basse Jr. Author Talk Series
De Lissovoy will deliver a lecture on “Unpacking an Art Exhibit and Thinking Like Collage” on Jan. 27.
W&L to Host ‘Slices of Research’ Program at Salerno Wood Fired Pizza & Taphouse
Newly promoted faculty members will present their research in a PechaKucha format on Jan. 28.
Museums at W&L: Winter 2025 Programs and Exhibitions
The Museums at W&L invite the public to explore its exhibitions and collections with select programming through May.
Florence As It Was Chosen for National Competition
The interdisciplinary research project has been selected to participate in an open competition among medieval digital humanities projects for K-12 students.
Musician and Scholar Tammy Kernodle to Deliver Lecture at W&L
Kernodle’s Nov. 15 lecture is supported by W&L’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter.
Elliott King Presents Paper at Conference at The Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice
The W&L professor of art history attends conference exploring and celebrating Surrealism in Italy.
‘W&L After Class’ Podcast Releases New Episode Featuring Melissa Kerin
In this month’s episode, Kerin, professor of art history, discusses how following her curiosity of the ways in which people tell stories opened her to opportunities to study remote Buddhist shrines in the Himalayas and examine how we live and die as the director of the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics.
The Museums at W&L Present Emma Steinkraus’ ‘Impossible Garden: Dusk & Dawn’
The exhibition, on view starting Oct. 2, celebrates women artists in overlooked genres.
George Bent, Sidney Gause Childress Professor in the Arts, has spent his career at W&L inspiring and being inspired by his students.
‘A Night of Miigis Moments’ Brings Indigenous-Led Performance To W&L
The Oct. 8 event is presented by Red Sky Performance and is part of the Lenfest Center’s Outreach & Engagement Series.
Indigenous Artist Sandra Laronde to Deliver Lenfest Center Series Keynote Address at W&L
An authentic Indigenous dinner will accompany Laronde’s talk on Oct. 7 and is part of the Lenfest Center’s Outreach & Engagement Series.
Sample Courses
At W&L, we believe education and experience go hand-in-hand. You’ll be encouraged to dive in, explore and discover connections that will broaden your perspective.
ARTH 246
Questions of Ownership
This course explores the ways art and cultural heritage objects have been stolen, laundered, purchased, curated and destroyed in order to express political, religious and cultural messages. Case studies and current events are equally studied to shed light on practices of looting and iconoclasm.
ARTH 398
Seminar in Museum Studies
An exploration of the history, philosophy and practical aspects of museums. Topics of discussion include governance and administration, collections, exhibitions and education. The course alternates weekly readings and class discussion with field trips to regional museums.
ARTH 356
Science in Art
This course involves a survey of 17th-century Dutch history, art history, etc., which links the scientific analysis to the art and culture of the time. The first 12 weeks (CHEM 156) involving primarily the scientific and technical background are taught on campus at W&L during the Winter Term. The second four weeks (ARTH 356) involving art and culture, are taught at the Center for European Studies (CES) Universiteit Maastricht in The Netherlands.
CLAS 338
Pompeii
The site of ancient Pompeii presents a thriving Roman town of the first century AD, virtually frozen in time by the devastating eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. In this course, we examine Pompeii’s archaeological remains — public buildings, domestic architecture, painting, artifacts, inscriptions and graffiti — in order to reconstruct the life of the town. We also consider religion, games and entertainment, politics and the structure of Roman society.
HIST 230
Discovering W&L’s Origins
This course introduces students to the practice of historical archaeology using W&L’s Liberty Hall campus and ongoing excavations there as a case study. With archaeological excavation and documentary research as our primary sources of data, we use the methods of these two disciplines to analyze our data using tools from the digital humanities to present our findings.
Meet the Faculty
At W&L, students enjoy small classes and close relationships with professors who educate and nurture.


Andrea Lepage
Pamela H. Simpson Professor of Art History and Department Head
- P: 540-458-8305
- E: lepagea@wlu.edu
Andrea Lepage offers classes in the following areas: contemporary Chicana/o and U.S. Latina/o art, modern and colonial Latin American art, arts of Mesoamerica and the Andes, and Early Modern European art (Italian, Spanish, Dutch).


Rebecca Benefiel
Abigail Grigsby Urquhart Professor of Classics
Benefiel teaches classics and Latin courses such as Pompeii, Classics in a Digital Age, Roman Religion, and The Poetry of Ovid. Her research focuses on Pompeii, Latin epigraphy, and Roman social and cultural history.


George Bent
Sidney Gause Childress Professor in the Arts
- P: 540-458-8863
- E: bentg@wlu.edu
Bent teaches courses on medieval art, Renaissance art and gothic art. He has researched Italian art extensively and recently taught a course called Digital Florence in which students helped to digitally reconstruct the city.




Donald Gaylord
Research Archaeologist and Instructor of Anthropology
- P: 540-458-8378
- E: gaylordd@wlu.edu
Gaylord teaches courses in archaeology including Field Methods in Archaeology and Discovering W&L’s Origins Using Historical Archaeology. He researches the anthropological analysis of property ownership and land use.


Melissa R. Kerin
Professor of Art History
- P: 540-458-8858
- E: kerinm@wlu.edu
Kerin teaches courses in South Asian and East Asian art and architecture. Her research focuses on the intricate and multifaceted relationships between art and identity formation, cultural memory and religious praxis.


Elliott H. King
Associate Professor of Art History
- P: 540-458-8857
- E: kingeh@wlu.edu
King teaches courses in American and European Art, 1750 to the present. His research specialization is Surrealist art and thought with particular concentration on Salvador Dalí\’s production after 1940.


Michael Laughy
Boetsch Term Associate Professor of Classics and Department Head
- P: 540-458-4569
- E: laughym@wlu.edu
Laughy teaches courses in ancient Greek religion, history, art and archaeology. His research interests are Greek religion, Greek epigraphy and ancient Athens.


Erich Uffelman
Bentley Professor of Chemistry
Uffelman teaches courses in upper-level inorganic chemistry. He also teaches courses that overlap with the Art and Art History Department, such as Science in Art. Uffelman regularly supervises summer research students.








