UPCOMING
IN FOCUS LECTURE: Whitney You
DATE: Sunday, December 7, 2025, 3-4:30 pm
Virtual
Whitney B. You, MD, MPH, MFA
Dr. Whitney B. You is a physician, writer, and educator whose work bridges medicine, art, and narrative. She is Director of Obstetrics at Evanston Hospital/Endeavor Health, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. A board-certified Maternal–Fetal Medicine specialist and U.S. Navy veteran, she has devoted her career to improving perinatal outcomes and physician well-being while integrating the humanities into medical education.
Dr. You holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has been recognized by the Best American Essays series and received honors including a Pushcart Prize and Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. Her essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Pleiades, The Rumpus, and Typehouse, among others.
Her current work explores the role of art in cultivating empathy, reflection, and resilience in clinical practice. She is a 2024–25 Harvard Art Museums Health Professions Education Fellow and a Stanford Physician Well-Being Director Course participant.
Topic: In Focus Lecture with Dr. Whitney You
Time: Dec 7, 2025 03:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82048808591?pwd=b5VLJIsg8NtujOKoheJzi00ji7Z6GL.1
Meeting ID: 820 4880 8591
Passcode: 988976
IN FOCUS LECTURE: Look Close, See Far: Teaching and Learning at the Block Museum of Art
DATE: Sunday, January 25th, 2025, 3-4:30 pm
In Person
How can art help us understand ourselves – or the world – differently? Join us for a conversation about how the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University works to support interdisciplinary teaching and dialogue for campus and community audiences, and a special look at The Living Room, a new drop-in space created with students in mind and open to all. Designed to be comfortable (with coffee allowed and long visits encouraged), The Living Room centers close-looking and curiosity, showcasing a single artwork each month from the museum’s collection alongside prompts and activities to inspire reflection and dialogue that extends beyond the museum’s walls. This participatory talk will include examples of close-looking exercises that can be used to explore any work of art.
About the Speaker
Erin Northington is the Susan and Stephen Wilson Associate Director of Campus and Community Education and Engagement at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University where she directs public programming, co-curricular learning experiences, and collaborations with campus and community partners. Her areas of interest include higher education, interdisciplinary teaching and learning in academic art museums, and how art museums can support the college student experience. Prior to coming to the Block Museum in 2020, she served as the Assistant Director of Student Programs and Campus Initiatives at the Harvard Art Museums. She holds a BA in English and Art History from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.
IN FOCUS LECTURE: “Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt” - Lecture with Ross Stanton Jordan
DATE: Sunday, October 26, 2025, 3-4:30 pm
In-Person and Virtual
Join us for this In Focus Lecture in which Ross Stanton Jordan will explore renowned Chicago artist Richard Hunt’s love of steel and the material’s impact on culture and art history. Jordan is the curator of “Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt” on view at the Loyola University Museum of Art through November 14, presented by Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
Ross Stanton Jordan is a curator interested in the confluence of politics, visual culture, and artistic production. He holds a Studio Arts degree from Connecticut College and dual Master's degrees in Art History and Arts Administration and Policy from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jordan has made himself a vital presence in Chicago’s art community, curating dozens of independent and organizationally supported exhibitions and public programs. Jordan is the curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago’s dynamic monument to democracy. At the museum and independently, he has produced dozens of exhibitions and one hundred public programs that connect the social justice issues of the past to the present-day demands for social equity via collaborations with artists, scholars, and community-based organizations.
Jordan was a 12-month intern in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA where he contributed to MoMA’s first blog Inside/Out and provided research support for exhibitions, including Lee Bontecou: All Freedom in Every Sense (2010), Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art (2011) and Abstract Expressionist New York (2012). He has held curatorial fellowships at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Independent Curators International, and the American Association of Museums. In 2022, Newcity Magazine named Jordan one of the top 50 Chicago arts administrators working to make a more equitable and sustainable arts world. In 2024, The Chicago Tribune named Jordan, along with his colleagues at Hull-House, Chicagoans of the Year in Museums.
PAST
2025
Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler
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2024
Eden Juron Pearlman: Bringing the WPA Home to Illinois and Evanston
Making a movie that was seen in outer space with filmmaker and Evanston native Sarah Moshman
Duality Is Inherent within a Unified Whole with Julie Rotblatt Amrany
Landscape in Light: The Art Institute's Tiffany Memorial Window with Rachel Sabino
Hollis Clayson, The Dark Side of the Eiffel Tower
The Artistic Practice of Marion Mahony Griffin, Enviromentalist and Architect Featuring Debora Wood
Encouraging Young Artists on to Higher Education: The Latino Art Beat Story
2023
Dorothy Marks, How I Wrote a Book
Rebecca Keller What Color is the Sea? What Color is the Sky
In Focus Lecture Series: Film Premiere - At Home in Evanston: Diverse Perspectives of Our City
Sharon Hoogstraten, Dancing for Our Tribe: Potawatomi Tradition in the New Millennium
In Conversation with Shonna Pryor and Matt Morris
Debora Wood, Echoes: Contemporary Trends in Printmaking
2022
Cortney Lederer: How Art is Getting Us Through the Pandemic
Nika Levando: Mural Commissions on the South Side of Chicago - Lessons Learned
Ignatius Valentine Aloysius: Digging Deep into Revision
Poems While You Wait: A Panel Discussion on Poetry on Demand
LP "Larry" Lundy: Journey Through an Artist's Life
In Conversation with Connie Noyes and Tricia Van Eck
2021
Holly Clayson: Modern Art and Light/s
Alpha M. Bruton & Liza Simone: Pop-Up Research Station
Cindi Strauss: Exploring Contemporary Ceramics: Shifting Tastes and New Expressions
Rachel Sabino: The Inner Life of a Bronze Dionysos
Tanner Woodford: Designing a New Museum
Julius L. Jones: City on Fire: Chicago 1871
Donna Gabanski and Joan Winstein: Chicago Architecture Center Docents
2020
Richard Townsend: The ABCs of Art Collecting
Angela Tate: That's What A Song Can Do
Dan Hill: The Inside Scoop on How We Experience Art