The Department of American Studies is deeply concerned with public scholarship and finding innovative ways to reach out to the greater community around us. In that vein, we're happy to report that Dr. Janet Davis has consulted on a brand new exhibition at the the Blanton Art Museum entitled "In the Company of Cats and Dogs." The exhibition features works of art featuring - surprise - cats and dogs, including works by Pablo Picasso as well as some video clips of cats. Like Nora the Piano Cat. Seriously. No word yet on whether Keyboard Cat is also featured, but we can hope...

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ[/embed]

In addition to providing her own expertise on animals and humanities, Janet also incorporated the exhibit into her Plan II Signature Course: students in her class wrote papers on specific works, which the curators then used to generate some of the labels in the gallery. Truly a wonderful and fruitful bridge between the classroom and the community.More details on the exhibition can be found here, and we highly recommend you check it out this summer!