By Madison Gilmore-Duffey (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art History, Florida State University)

As Art Historians, we must contend with the fact that we so often teach from reproductions––usually digital. While the benefits of this technology cannot be understated, it is essential that we acknowledge its drawbacks as well. Through the screen, material culture is made immaterial, abstracted into an idea, rather than a “thing.” Students are alienated from the objects that we expect them to research, and, in many cases, this alienation is evident in their research and writing. The subject is far away, it is intangible, and student interest is low. How do we address this problem?

This Fall 2025 semester, students in the Department of Art History’s Writing and Reading Art History course at Florida State University had the opportunity to work with a collection of sixteen Byzantine coins. The coins were on loan from the personal collection of alumnus Dr. Brad Hostetler. Spanning the sixth to thirteenth centuries, these coins provided an overview of a large portion of the history of the empire.

I designed the curriculum to prioritize long-form and object-focused research, critical engagement with academic scholarship, and writing for varied audiences. While the focus of the course itself was not “Byzantine coins,” students were immersed into this world through their engagement with and research on the objects.

Students selected a coin from the collection and spent the semester researching and writing about it. Their assignments were scaffolded and ran parallel to their research on the empire. They began with a formal analysis after limited exposure to Byzantine History or Art History. They then developed research questions and a preliminary thesis before drafting an abstract and two drafts of their research paper. Lessons varied between practical skills (using databases, writing citations, editing) and more conceptual ones (tone, considering the stakes). Students were also asked to write a catalog text based on their selected coins to practice communicating with different audiences and sharing their research with non-specialized groups.

Students’ relationships with these coins as material, physical objects were evident in their work. Students were invested in their coins. They returned to them repeatedly over the course of the semester: sometimes to observe them, sometimes to hold them. When they felt stymied in the research process, they went back to the object. When they were excited about a new train of inquiry, they went back to the object. Their work––not just the final product––was object-focused.

There is no universal key to engaging students. However, if we hope to train Art Historians who are committed to their objects of inquiry, invested in their research, and interested in disseminating that to broader audiences––whether in academia, museums, galleries, or beyond––then we must create opportunities that allow our students to engage with material culture as the tangible, complex, and material culture that it is.