In this colloquium session, Teaching Assistant Professor of Museum Studies Deirdre Madeleine Smith will share an overview and invite a discussion of her exhibition project, opening this month in the Hyland Gallery at Hillman Library: "We Humans" at 70: Educating Pittsburgh on Race in the 1950s (co-organized with Museum Studies student Lindsey Kenny). The exhibit at Hillman shares the story of "We Humans," an exhibit on race and racism developed by Carnegie Museum curators of anthropology that debuted in downtown Pittsburgh in 1955 before reaching a national audience through portable displays and publications. Seventy years after the debut of "We Humans," the current exhibition asks: What do the ambitions and shortcomings of this initiative have to teach audiences in Pittsburgh today? 

About the Speaker: Deirdre Smith started as a Teaching Assistant Professor of Museum Studies in the HAA Department in Fall 2022 and is jointly appointed as a curator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Deirdre is a specialist in modern and contemporary art and visual culture, and her teaching and research center on the ways that art and visual culture distinctively mediate ethical and philosophical discussions.