The Harvard Art Museums collections play an important role in the popular undergraduate course Texts in Transition, co-taught by history professor Ann Blair and English professor Leah Whittington, as part of the Harvard College Program in General Education. In this conversation, professors Blair and Whittington discuss this ongoing collaboration with Laura Muir and Jen Thum of the Harvard Art Museums. Together, they explore the role that close examination—in person and virtual—of a diverse array of objects plays in helping students consider how texts have traveled through time and across media, as well as the ways in which these objects capture, transmit, and preserve human experiences. TAKE A CLOSER LOOK: + Cuneiform tablet and envelope: Old Assyrian letter, c. 1927-1836 BCE. Clay. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Leslie Cheek, Jr. and Purchase through the generosity of Sol Rabin and the Marian H. Phinney Fund, 2000.197.A-C. https://hvrd.art/o/146548. + Squeeze from the Temple of Hathor at Deir el-Medina, Egyptian, 3rd century BCE (reign of Ptolemy IV). Paper. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of George Wigglesworth, 1909.15. https://hvrd.art/o/11414. + Albrecht Dürer, German, “Erasmus,” 1526. Engraving. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, G1120. https://hvrd.art/o/273688. + Printing Block: Page Twenty-Seven (recto and verso) of the Appendix to the Collected Literary Works of Hunsu Sŏnsaeng, 18th-19th century. Carved and engraved wood. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Arthur W. Asbury in honor of James Cuno, 2002.272. https://hvrd.art/o/99849. SPEAKERS: + Ann Blair, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Chair of the Department of History, Harvard University; + Leah Whittington, Professor of English, Harvard University; + Laura Muir, Associate Director of Academic and Public Programs and Louis Miller Thayer Research Curator, Harvard Art Museums; + Jen Thum, Assistant Director of Academic Engagement and Assistant Research Curator, Harvard Art Museums; --- Recorded Friday, November 13, 2020. © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Video: Laura Muir, Jen Thum, Leah Whittington, and Ann Blair. For questions related to permission for commercial use of this video, please contact the Department of Digital Imaging and Visual Resources at am_divr@harvard.edu.