Erika Doss

I AM America: Art and Belief During the Great Depression

Monuments Are Mortal: Public Art, Permanence, and Cultural Vandalism

Troubling Memorials: American Reckoning with the Stuff of History

Faith in Transit: Airport Chapels in the 21st Century

Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023).
Awarded: Best 20 Art Books of 2023 by Hyperallergic

American Art of the 20th–21st Centuries (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Paperback: 2012

Twentieth-Century American Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Oxford History of Art series).
Translated into Armenian: 2016
Translated into Arabic: 2017

Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999). Paperback: 2004

Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995).

Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). Paperback: 1995

Looking at Life Magazine, editor (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).

The Emotional Life of Contemporary Public Memorials: Towards a Theory of Temporary Memorials, Meertens Ethnology Cahier 3 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008).

“Afterword: Critique and Engagement in America’s National Parks,” Art Journal, Special Issue: “National Parks in Prospect,” eds. Monica Bravo and Emma Silverman (Winter 2024): forthcoming.

“Public Art and Racial Reckoning in 21st Century America: Symbolic Capital and Cultural Vandalism,” F&E Edition: The Research Journal of the Vorarlberg University of Education 27 (2021): 11–22.

"In Conversation: Archives and the Pandemic," Archives of American Art Journal 60, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 86–7.

“Authenticity, Memory, and Materiality: Disgraced Memorials and Issues of Permanence,” American Quarterly 73, no. 1 (March 2021): 135–9.

“American Art Matters: Rethinking Materiality in American Studies,” Open Cultural Studies, Special Issue: “Trajectories and Conceptual Futures for Material Culture Studies,” 3 (2019): 75–84.

“The Elephant in the Room: Prejudicial Public Art and Cultural Vandalism,” de arte 53, nos. 2/3 (2018): 4–30.

“Grant Wood’s Queer Parody: American Humor During the Great Depression,” Winterthur Portfolio 52, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 3–45.

“Arrival and Afterlife: Jackson Pollock’s Mural and the University of Iowa,” Getty Research Journal 9, supplement 1: Examining Pollock (2017): 117–32.

“Public Art, Public Feeling: Contrasting Site-Specific Projects of Christo and Ai Weiwei,” Public Art Dialogue 7, no. 2 (Fall 2017): 196–228.

“Commemorating Disaster and Disobedience: National Park Service Initiatives in the 21st Century,” Social Science Quarterly 97, no. 1 (March 2016): 105–14.

“Guest Editor’s Statement: Thinking About Forever,” Special Issue, The Dilemma of Public Art’s Permanence, Public Art Dialogue 6, no.1 (Spring 2016): 1–5.

“Hopper’s Cool: Modernism and Emotional Restraint,” American Art 29, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 3–27.

“Victim Memorials and Public Feeling,” Ekfrase: Nordic Journal of Visual Culture 5, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 98–100.

“Transnational 9/11 Memorials: American Exceptionalism and Global Memories of Terrorism,” Jahrbuch für Politik und Geschichte 5 (2014): 123–42.

“Public Art, Public Response: Negotiating Civic Shame in Duluth, Minnesota,” Indiana Magazine of History 110, no. 1 (March 2014): 40–6.

“De Oppresso Liber and Reflecting Absence: Ground Zero Memorials and the War on Terror,” American Quarterly 65, no. 1 (March 2013): 203–14.

“Monuments commemoratius i llocs de consciecia,” La Revista Via 21 (May 2013): 55–74.

“Women Warrior Memorials and Issues of Gender in Contemporary American Public Art,” Public Art Dialogue 2, no. 2 (September 2012): 190–214.

“Public Art Chronicles: Louise Bourgeois’ Helping Hands and Chicago’s Identity Issues,” Public Art Dialogue 2, no. 1 (2012): 94–102.

“Nighthawks y el cine negro,” Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, Especial Issue “Edward Hopper y El Cine,” 15, no. 1 (Junio 2012): 26–8.

“Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s The Puritan: Founders’ Statues, Indian Wars, Contested Public Spaces, and Anger’s Memory in Springfield, Massachusetts,” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 4 (Winter 2012): 237–69.

“Public Art Chronicles: Michael Heizer’s Effigy Tumuli,” Public Art Dialogue 1, no. 2 (September 2011): 241–6.

“Artists in Hollywood: Thomas Hart Benton and Nathanael West Picture America’s Dream Dump,” The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914–1945 7, no. 1 (2011): 9–32.

“In Conversation: Disputation Over Sacred Space in Contemporary America,” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief 7, no. 2 (July 2011): 269–71.

“Makes Me Laugh, Makes Me Cry: Feelings and American Art,” American Art 25, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 2–8.

“Remembering 9/11: Memorials and Cultural Memory,” OAH Magazine of History 25, no. 3 (July 2011): 27–30.

“Concerning the 1930s in Art,” American Art Review 22, no. 2 (March/April): 100–7.

“Action, Agency, Affect: Thomas Hart Benton’s Hoosier History,” Indiana Magazine of History 105.2 (June): 127–39.

“Affect,” American Art 23, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 9–11.

“War, Memory, and the Public Mediation of Affect: The National World War II Memorial and American Imperialism,” Memory Studies 1, no. 2 (May 2008): 227–50.

“Memorial Mania: Fear, Anxiety, and Public Culture,” Museum (March 2008): 36–43, 72–5.

“Spontaneous Memorials and Contemporary Modes of Mourning in America,” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief 2, no. 3 (November 2006): 294–318.

“Duane Hanson’s Woman Eating,” American Art 20, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 9–12.

“Between Modernity and the ‘Real Thing’: Maynard Dixon’s Mural for the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” American Art 18, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 8–31.

“Death, Art, and Memory in the Public Sphere: The Visual and Material Culture of Grief in Contemporary America,” Mortality 7, no. 1 (2002): 63–82.

“Looking at Labor: Images of Work in 1930s American Art,” The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 24 (2002): 230–57.

“Honoré Sharrer’s Tribute to the American Working People: Issues of Labor and Leisure in Post-World War II American Art,” American Art 16, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 54–81.

“Believing in Elvis: Popular Piety in Material Culture,” Business Perspectives 14, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 30–8.

Guest Editor with Robert L. McGrath, Journal of the West 40, no. 4 (Fall 2001), Special Issue, “Images of the West,” with essays by Nancy Anderson, William Anthes, Rayna Green, Elizabeth Kennedy, and William Truettner, and introductory essay “From Archetype to Stereotype: The Making and Marketing of Western Art,” 6–7.

“Hangin’ Out at the Leanin’ Tree: Mastery and Mythos in Western American Art, Old and New,” Journal of the West 40, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 16–25.

“Western Art’s Place in American Art History,” Southwest Art 29, no. 8 (January 2000): 69.

“‘Revolutionary Art is a Tool for Liberation’: Emory Douglas and Protest Aesthetics at the Black Panther,” New Political Science 21, no. 2 (June 1999): 245–59.

“Imaging the Panthers: Representing Black Power and Masculinity, 1960s-1990s,” Prospects: An Annual of American Studies 23 (1998): 470–93.

“Toward an Iconography of American Labor: Work, Workers, and the Work Ethic in American Art, 1930-1945,” Design Issues 13, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 53–66.

“The Power of Elvis,” American Art 11, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 4-7.

“Elvis in the Public Sphere: Fans, Faith, and Cultural Production in Contemporary America,” Odense American Studies International Series 24 (October 1996): 1–24.

“Displaying Cultural Difference: The North American Art Collections at the Denver Art Museum,” Museum Anthropology 20, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 1–15.

“Raising Community Consciousness with Public Art: Contrasting Projects by Judy Baca and Andrew Leicester,” American Art 6, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 62–81.

“New Deal Politics and Regionalist Art: Thomas Hart Benton’s A Social History of the State of Indiana,” Prospects: An Annual of American Studies 17 (1992): 353–78.

“Catering to Consumerism: Associated American Artists and the Marketing of Modern Art, 1934- 1958,” Winterthur Portfolio, A Journal of American Material Culture 26, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1991): 143–67.

“Athena Tacha’s Cosmocentric Sculpture and Contemporary Public Art,” Woman’s Art Journal 9, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1988): 38–44.

“Andrew Leicester’s Mining Memorials,” Arts Magazine 61, no. 5 (January 1987): 34–7.

“Andrew Leicester’s Cobumora,” Landscape Architecture 76, no. 1 (January 1986): 64–8.

“An Interview with Andrew Leicester: Sculpture in a Social Context,” International Sculpture 5, no. 3 (November–December 1985): 8–9, 33.

“Depression Regionalism and Regionalism Today,” Dialogue 8, no. 1 (January/February 1985): 9–11.

“Uncommon Prints: Vermillion Editions,” ARTS (Minneapolis) 7, no. 1 (January 1984): 13–6.

“Beyond Emergence: Contemporary Artists in Minnesota,” Artpaper 3, no. 6 (February 1984): 14–5.

“The Image of the American Woman in the 1930s: Reginald Marsh and Paramount Picture,” Woman’s Art Journal 4, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1983): 1–4.

“Copies, Collectibles, and ‘Art for the People’,” Artpaper 2, no. 9 (May 1983): 5.

“Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, and Film Noir,” Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities 2, no. 2 (Winter 1983): 14–36.

“Borrowing Regionalism: Advertising’s Use of American Art in the 1930s and 1940s,” Journal of American Culture 5, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 10–9.

“Thomas Hart Benton,” in 150 Stories: The Art Students League, ed. Stephanie Cassidy (New York: The Arts Students League, 2025), forthcoming.

“Maynard Dixon’s Masculinist Take on the American West,” in Maynard Dixon, ed. Kenneth Hartvigsen (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2025), forthcoming.

“Color Blind, Age Bound: Grandma Moses and Modern American Art,” in Grandma Moses: Reconsidering an American Icon, ed. Leslie Umberger (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2025), forthcoming.

“Spiritual Surrealists: Joseph Cornell, Mina Loy, and Religious Currents in Interwar American Surrealism,” in Dada and Surrealism: Transatlantic Transactions Between the Great War and The Cold War, ed. James W. McManus (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2024), forthcoming.

“I Am Queen Mary, Copenhagen,” in Breaking the Bronze Ceiling: Women, Memory, and Public Space, eds. Valentina Rozas-Krause and Andrew M. Shanken (New York: Fordham University Press, 2024), 257–60.

“Failure as Success: Sam Durant’s Scaffold, Angela Two Stars’ Okciyapi and the Conundrum of Critique,” in The Failures of Public Art and Participation, eds. Cameron Cartiere and Anthony Schrag (London: Routledge, 2023), 22–42.

“America’s Contemporary Commemorative Landscapes: Themes and Practices in Memorial Mania,” in The Routledge Companion to the American Landscape, eds. Chris W. Post, Alyson L. Greiner, and Geoffrey L. Buckley (New York: Routledge, 2023), 229–42.

“Agnes Pelton (1881-1961),” in The Unforgettables: Expanding the History of American Art, ed. Charles Eldredge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2022), 316–22.

“The Art of the Gentling Brothers: Contemporary Realists in the Lone Star State,” in Imagined Realism: Scott and Stuart Gentling, ed. Will Gorham (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2021), 141–69.

“Paul Thek and the Muses of Italy: Death, Decay, and the Technological Reliquaries, 1963-1967,” in Republics and Empires: Italian and American Art in TransnationalPerspective, 1840-1970, eds. Melissa Dabakis and Paul Kaplan (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), 414–40.

“Life’s Impact: Circulation, Copycats, and Reader Response” in Life Magazine and the Power of Photography, eds. Katherine A. Bussard and Kristen Gresch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 112–25.

"Accommodating Mobility: Marjorie Hillis, Edward Hopper, and the Meaning of ‘Home’ in Modern America,” in Edward Hopper and the American Hotel, ed. Leo Mazow (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 46–61, 181–3.

“Agnes Pelton’s Visionary Modernism,” in Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist, ed. Gilbert Vicario (Phoenix Art Museum, 2019), 30–9.

“Manly Workers and Pin-Up Girls: Sources for Comic Book Superheroes in 1930s American Visual Culture,” in Men of Steel, Women of Wonder: Modern American Superheroes in Contemporary Art, ed. Alejo Benedetti (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2019), 78–113.

“Toppling the Trung Sisters Monument: Cultural Vandalism in Saigon, 1963,” in Decoding Dictatorial Statues, eds. Ted Hyunhak Yoon and Bernke Klein Zandvoort (Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Onomatopee, 2019), 160–9, 279–80.

“Introduction,” in Monumental Troubles: Rethinking What Monuments Mean Today, eds. Erika Doss and Cheryl Snay (Notre Dame, IN: Midwest Art History Society and the Snite Museum of Art, 2018), 3–6.

“Afterword: Commemoration, Conversation, and Public Feeling in America Today,” in Commemoration: The American Association of State and Local History Guide, ed. Seth C. Bruggeman (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 136–44.

“The Process Frame: Vandalism, Removal, Re-Siting, Destruction,” in A Companion to Public Art, eds. Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 403–21.

“Public Feeling, Public Healing: Contemporary Memorials and the Mediation of Grief,” in Cultures of Privacy: Paradigms, Transformations, Contestations, eds. Karsten Fitz and Bärbel Harju (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2015), 35–55.

“Regional Reputations, Modern Tastes, and Cultural Nationalism: Kentucky and the Index of American Design, 1936-1942,” in Kentucky by Design: The Decorative Arts and American Culture, ed. Andrew Kelly (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 10–27.

“Mining the Dream Factory: Thomas Hart Benton, American Artists, and the Rise of the Movie Industry,” in American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood (New York: Prestel, 2015), 64–82.

“Hollywood Stars, High-Paid Llamas, and Car Shows: Magnum’s Cultural Project,” in Reading Magnum: A Visual Archive of the Modern World, ed. Steven Hoelscher (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013), 196–217.

“‘Go out into the street, stare at the people’: Reginald Marsh and Surveillance Styles in Interwar American Art,” in Swing Time: Reginald Marsh and Thirties New York, ed. Barbara Haskell (New York: New-York Historical Society, 2012), 110–27.

“Who Owns Historical Memory? Commemorative Conflicts in the American Southwest,” in The American Uses of History: Essays on Public Memory, eds. Tomasz Basiuk, Sylwia Kuzma-Markowska, and Krystyna Mazur (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011), 17–30.

“Terrorism Memorials, Security Narratives, and Public Feeling: Fear and Anxiety in Post- 9/11 America,” in The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real, eds. Ulla Haselstein, Andrew Gross, and Maryann Snyder-Körber (Heidelburg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010), 117–33.

“War Porn: Spectacle and Seduction in Contemporary American War Memorials,” in War Isn’t Hell, It’s Entertainment: Essays on Visual Media and the Representation of Conflict, ed. Rikke Schubart (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009), 13–30.

“Thomas Hart Benton Illustrates John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,” in A New Literary History of America, eds. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 737–42.

“The Next Step?” in Re-Enchantment, eds. James Elkins and David Morgan (New York: Routledge, 2008), 297–301.

“Rock and Roll Pilgrims: Reflections on Ritual, Religiosity, and Race at Graceland,” in Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred, ed. Peter Jan Margry (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), 123–41.

“Victors, Victims, and Western Memories: Monuments at Little Bighorn,” in (Im)Permanence: Cultures In/Out of Time, eds. Judith Schachter and Stephen Brockman (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2008), 120–8.

“Joseph Cornell and Christian Science,” in Joseph Cornell: Opening the Box, eds. Jason Edwards and Stephanie L. Taylor (Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 113–35.

“Wandering the Old, Weird America: Poetic Musings and Pilgrimage Perspectives on Vernacular Environments,” in Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists, ed. Leslie Umberger (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), 24–45.

“Shoot Out: Poking Fun and Challenging Myths in Western American Art,” in Redrawing Boundaries: Perspectives on Western American Art, ed. Peter Hassrick (Denver: The Institute of Western American Art, 2007), 44–55.

“Cultural Institutions,” in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, eds. Richard Sisson, Christopher Zacher, and Andrew Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 613–20.

“Controversy and Public Art: The Phoenix Pots Episode,” in Infusion: 20 Years of Public Art in Phoenix (Phoenix: Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, 2005), 46–55.

“Elvis Forever,” in Afterlife as Afterimage: Understanding Posthumous Fame, eds. Joli Jensen and Steve Jones (New York: Peter Lang, Inc., 2005), 116–41.

“Popular Culture Canonization: Elvis Presley as Saint and Savior,” in The Making of Saints: Contesting Sacred Ground, ed. James F. Hopgood (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005), 152–68.

“Complicating Modernism: Issues of Liberation and Constraint Among the Women Art Students of Robert Henri,” in American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910–1945, ed. Marian E. Wardle (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 116–37, 246–9.

“Believing in Elvis: Popular Piety in Material Culture,” in Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and Culture, eds. Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 63–86.

“American Folk Art’s ‘Distinctive Character’: The Index of American Design and New Deal Notions of Cultural Nationalism,” in Drawing on America’s Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design, eds. Virginia Tuttle Clayton, et al. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2002), 60–73.

“The Visual Arts in Post-1945 America,” in A Companion to Post-1945 America, eds. Jean-Christopher Agnew and Roy Rosenzweig (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2002), 113–33.

“Robert Gober’s ‘Virgin’ Installation: Issues of Spirituality in Contemporary American Art,” in The Visual Culture of American Religions, eds. David Morgan and Sally M. Promey (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 129–45, 322–4.

“Introduction: Looking at Life: Rethinking America's Favorite Magazine, 1936–1972,” in Looking at Life Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 1–21.

“‘Revolutionary Art is a Tool for Liberation’: Emory Douglas and Protest Aesthetics at the Black Panther,” in Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy, eds. Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas (New York: Routledge, 2001), 175–87, 278–80.

“Visualizing Black America: Gordon Parks at Life, 1948–1971,” in Looking at Life Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 220–41.

“Images of American Women in the 1930s: Reginald Marsh and Paramount Picture,” in Critical Issues in American Art: A Book of Readings, ed. Mary Ann Calo (New York: Icon Editions, 1997), 295–301.

“Making Imagination Safe in the 1950s: Disneyland's Fantasy Art and Architecture,” in Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance, ed. Karal Ann Marling (New York: Flammarion, 1997), 178–89, 216–8.

“Making a ‘Virile, Manly Christ’: The Cultural Origins and Meanings of Warner Sallman’s Religious Imagery,” in Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman, 1892–1968, ed. David Morgan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 61–94.

“‘I must paint’: Women Artists of the Rocky Mountain Region, 1890-1945,” in Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890–1945, ed. Patricia Trenton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 209–41.

“The Art of Cultural Politics: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism,” in Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War, ed. Lary May (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 97–136.

“The Year of Peril: Thomas Hart Benton and World War II,” in Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, and Intellectual, eds. Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains (Columbia, Missouri: The State Historical Society of Missouri, 1989), 35–63.

“Landscape Painting, ” in A Modern American Collection: Charles Butt’s Art Building in Texas, ed. Shirley Reece-Hughes (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2025), forthcoming.

“Picturing an Inclusive Northern Plains Landscape: The Corn Palace Murals, 1948–71,” in Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe, eds. Bill Anthes and Kathleen Ash-Milby (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2022), 106–13, 171.

“Epilogue: Old West, New West: Postwar and Contemporary American Artists,” in The American West in Art: Selections from the Denver Art Museum, eds. Thomas Smith and Jennifer R. Henneman (Denver: Petrie Institute of Western American Art, 2020), 202–13, 219.

“Edward Hopper in Cape Ann, 1928,” in Edward Hopper: A Fresh Look at Landscape, ed. Ulf Küster (Basel: Fondation Beyeler, 2020), 46–53.

“Westward Perspectives: An Interview with T.L. Solien,” in T.L. Solien: Toward the Setting Sun, ed. Colleen Sheehy (Fargo and Minneapolis: Plains Art Museum and University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 53–61.

“American Moderns in the 1930s and 1940s: The Triumph of Diversity,” in New Forms: The Avant-Garde Meets the American Scene, 1934–1949 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Museum of Art and University of Iowa Press, 2013), 6–19.

“Ralph Fasanella’s More Perfect Union: Art, Labor, and Politics in Post-World War II America,” in Ralph Fasanella: A More Perfect Union (New York: Andrew Edlin Gallery, 2013), 4–15.

“Cultural Globalization and Critical Regionalism in Contemporary American Art,” in Here, ed. Julien Robson (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2011), 17–25.

“Shared Memory: Artists’ Perspectives and Practices,” in Hiding Places: Memory in the Arts, eds. Amy Chaloupka and Leslie Umberger (Sheboygan: John Michael Kohler Art Center, 2011), 93–113.

“With Old Friends: New Work by John Wilde,” in John Wilde (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006), n.p.

“Coming Home to the American Scene: Realist Paintings, 1930–1950 in the Schoen Collection,” in Coming Home: American Painting 1930–1950, from the Schoen Collection (Athens, Georgia: Georgia Museum of Art, 2005), 19–35.

“Visualizing Faith: Religious Presence and Meaning in Contemporary American Art,” in Coming Home! Self-Taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South, ed. Carol Crown (Memphis: Art Museum of the University of Memphis; Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 20–30.

“Duane Hanson: Social Realist from America’s Heartland,” in Duane Hanson: Portraits from America’s Heartland, ed. Rusty Freeman (Fargo: Plains Art Museum, 2004), 17–33.

“John Wilde’s Odd America,” in John Wilde, Recent Work (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2003), n.p.

“Honoré Sharrer’s Magic Realism: Recent Paintings and Drawings,” in Honoré Sharrer (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2002), 8–16.

“Galia Schapira: Recent Work” in What Do You See When You Look Over There? (Denver: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2001), n.p.

“Hung Liu, Anita Rodriguez, Alison Saar, and Emmi Whitehorse: Re-Imaging the American West from Cross-Cultural Perspectives,” in Expanded Visions: Four Women Artists Print the American West (Denver: Women of the West Museum, 2000), 4–5, 28.

“Modern Times: Twentieth-Century American Modernists and Notions of Time,” in Tempus Fugit: Time Flies, ed. Jan Schall (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2000), 100–15.

“From the Great Depression to the Cold War: Politics, Painting, and Jackson Pollock,” in Thomas Hart Benton, ed. Rudy Chiappini (Lugano: Museo d'Arte Moderna, 1992), 85–123.

“Artist-Made Furniture: Designing the Domestic Landscape,” in The Domo Project: Artist-Designed Furniture (Cleveland: Spaces Gallery, 1985), 6–11.

Book Review of Sara M. Patterson, Middle of Nowhere: Religion, Art, and Popular Culture at Salvation Mountain (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015), Pacific Historical Review 87, no. 1 (Winter 2018): 186–7.

Book Review of Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: Discoveries & Interpretations (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2015), Missouri Historical Review 110, no. 3 (April 2016): 222–3.

Book Review of Scott Herring, The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), The Journal of American History 102, no. 2 (December 2015): 930.

Book Review of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Ivan Gaskell, Sara J. Schechner, and Sarah Anne Carter, Tangible Things: Making History Through Objects (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), The Annals of Iowa (2015): 443–5.

Book Review of Samantha Baskind, Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America (University Park: Penn State Press, 2014), Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief 11, no. 1 (2015): 119–20.

Book Review of Gary B. Nash, The Liberty Bell (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), The Journal of American History 97, no. 4 (March 2011): 1101.

“Mall Talk,” Review Essay of Nathan Glazer and Cynthia R. Field, The National Mall: Rethinking Washington's Monumental Core (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), and Kirk Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), Reviews in American History 39, no. 2 (June 2011): 322–8.

Book Review of Rachel Berenson Perry, T.C. Steele and the Society of Western Artists (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), Indiana Magazine of History 106, no. 2 (June 2010): 197–8.

Book Review of Jonathan Fein and Brian Danitz, Objects and Memory: A Documentary Film (2008), The Public Historian 31, no. 3 (August 2009): 119–20.

Book Review of Pam Meecham and Julie Sheldon, Making American Art (New York: Routledge, 2009), American Studies 50, nos. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2009): 127.

Book Review of Betsy Fahlman, New Deal Art in Arizona (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009), American Studies 50, nos. 3/4 (Fall/Winter 2009): 178–9.

Book Review of Sara Doris, Pop Art and the Contest Over American Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), American Studies 48, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 93–4.

Book Review of Linda Bantel and Peter Hassrick, Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney (Cody: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 2006), Annals of Wyoming: The Wyoming History Journal (Summer–Autumn 2007): 74–5.

Book Review of Nicholas Sammond, Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Making of the American Child, 1930–1960 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), The Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (June 2006): 281–2.

Book Review of David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America’s Founding Ideas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 113, no. 2 (2005): 185–7.

Book Review of Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, eds. Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2003), Archives of American Art Journal 43, nos. 3/4 (2004): 29–32.

Book Review of Seeing the Difference: Conversations on Death and Dying, ed. Christina M. Gillis, Doreen B. Townsend Center Occasional Papers no. 24/25 (Berkeley: The Regents of the University of California, 2001), Death Studies 27, no. 6 (July 2003): 555–9.

Book Review of Kathleen A. Foster, Nanette Esseck Brewer, and Margaret Contompasis, Thomas Hart Benton and the Indiana Murals (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), Indiana Magazine of History 98, no. 2 (2002): 145–7.

Book Review of Thomas Dublin and Melissa Doak, Miner’s Son, Miner’s Photographer: The Life and Work of George Harvan (The Journal of Multimedia History 3, 2000), Labor History 43, no. 3 (August 2002): 385–6.

Book Review of Darden Asbury Pyron, Liberace: An American Boy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), The Journal of American History 88, no. 2 (September 2001): 733–4.

Book Review of Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900–2000, eds. Stephanie Barron, Sheri Bernstein, and Ilene Susan Fort (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), Journal of the West 40, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 97.

Book Review of Michael Brenson, Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual Artist in America (New York: The New Press, 2001), Archives of American Art Journal 41, nos. 1–4 (2001): 50–5.

Book Review of Nancy Martha West, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), Winterthur Portfolio 35, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 301–5.

Book Review of Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), Winterthur Portfolio 34, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1999): 178–82.

Book Review of Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), Winterthur Portfolio 33, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 289–95.

Book Review of Stuart D. Hobbs, The End of the American Avant Garde (New York: New York University Press, 1997), The Journal of American History 84, no. 4 (March 1998): 1581.

“Not Just a Guy's Club Anymore,” Book Review Essay of Ann Eden Gibson, Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), American Quarterly 50, no. 4 (December 1998): 840–8.

Book Review of On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900-1950, ed. Paul J. Karlstrom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), American Studies 38, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 146–7.

Book Review of Wendy Kozol, Life's America: Family and Nation in Postwar Photojournalism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), The Journal of American History 82, no. 2 (September 1995): 826–7.

Book Review of Robert L. Dorman, Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in America, 1920–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), American Studies 35, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 148–9.

Book Review of Barbara Melosh, Engendering Culture, Manhood and Womanhood in New Deal Public Art and Theater (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), Woman's Art Journal 15, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1994): 43–5.

Book Review of Stephen Polcari, Abstract Expressionism and the Modern Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), The Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (March 1993): 1670–1.

Book Review of Ellen Wiley Todd, The "New Woman" Revised: Painting and Gender Politics on Fourteenth Street (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), Winterthur Portfolio 28, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1993): 204–7.

Book Review of Jan Rosenberg, Women's Reflections: The Feminist Film Movement (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983), in Woman's Art Journal 6, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1985): 45–7.

Essays on art and artists in Reflections: The American Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, eds. Nanette V. Maciejunes and Melissa Wolfe (Columbus: Ohio University Press, 2019), 268–70 (Thomas Hart Benton), 387–90 (O. Louis Guglielmi), 398–400 (Paul Cadmus), 465–6 (John Wilde), 508–10 (Louise Nevelson), 569–72 (William Hawkins), 615–8 (Masumi Hayashi), and 652–4 (Paul Shambroom).

Essays on paintings by Thomas Hart Benton, in American Paintings to 1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Margaret C. Conrads (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), vol. 1: 52–109; vol. 2: 18–45.

Entries for "Thomas Hart Benton," "MichaelHeizer, Effigy Tumuli," and "Wisconsin Death Trip," in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, eds. Richard Sisson, Christopher Zacher, and Andrew Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 587–8, 684, 633.

Entry for “Abstract Expressionism,” in The Oxford Companion to United States History, ed. Paul Boyer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 4.