On April 17th, Block Museum Curatorial Coordinator Kirsten Lopez gave the final talk in The Block’s series focusing on objects in the collection that connect to Louise Erdrich’s novel The Night Watchman, the 2024-2025 One Book One Northwestern selection. In her talk, Lopez shared a photograph by photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, taken for his series […]
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On January 16, 2025, Terra Engagement Fellow Teagan Harris gave a virtual talk placing Shan Goshorn’s Cherokee Burden Basket: A Song for Balance (2012) in dialogue with Louise Erdrich’s novel The Night Watchman, the 2024-2025 One Book, One Northwestern selection. This talk is the second in a series exploring connections between works in The Block’s […]
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One Book One Northwestern is an annual university-wide reading initiative that aims to generate a campus-wide conversation centered around a thought-provoking book. The 2024-2025 One Book selection is Louise Edrich’s 2020 novel The Night Watchman. Each year, The Block partners with One Book to select and compile works from the permanent collection that connect to […]
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“…if you should ever doubt that a series of dry words in a government document can shatter spirits and demolish lives, let this book erase that doubt. Conversely, if you should be of the conviction that we are powerless to change those dry words, let this book give you heart.” — Louise Erdrich, The Night […]
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One Book One Northwestern (OBON) is a university‐wide reading program that aims to engage the campus in a common conversation centered on a carefully chosen, thought-provoking book. The Block is proud to partner annually with One Book to explore the themes of this shared text, selecting artworks from the museum collection that can broaden discussions. The […]
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Throughout 2022-23, a series of talks consider works from The Block’s collection that reckon with the history of slavery, white supremacy, symbols of nationhood, and social inequity. This online talk was held in connection with 2022–23 One Book One Northwestern (OBON) selection How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across […]
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Throughout 2022-23 a series of talks considers works from the Block’s collection that reckon with the history of slavery, white supremacy, symbols of nationhood, and social inequity. This series is held in connection with 2022–23 One Book One Northwestern selection “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America” by Clint Smith. In […]
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“The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories.” – Epilogue, How […]
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Throughout 2020-21 The Block Museum is reflecting on artworks from the collection that explore ideas of excess, consumption, and the environment, and offer an interdisciplinary perspective on the climate crisis. Our project is inspired by The Story of More by Hope Jahren, Northwestern University’s 2021-2022 One Book One Northwestern (OBON) selection. In this online talk, Lois Taylor Biggs, […]
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Throughout 2020-21 The Block Museum is reflecting on artworks from the collection that explore ideas of excess, consumption, and the environment, and offer an interdisciplinary perspective on the climate crisis. Our project is inspired by The Story of More by Hope Jahren, Northwestern University’s 2021-2022 One Book One Northwestern (OBON) selection. This online talk by Melanie Garcia Sympson, […]
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