This research explores the relationship between narrative, empathy and anxiety in art museum education. The study begins from my personal experience with anxiety and is methodologically rooted in narrative inquiry and friendship as method. In this study, I propose a creative method of narrative postcard writing called (fe)mail – rooted in a feminist ethic of care that seeks to understand and empathize with the experience of others through correspondence. This research asks relevant questions about the future of art museum programming for mental illness and the act of writing (fe)mail as a reflective practice for academics and educators in the field of social science. In my narrative analysis of the program and the data, I also problematizes my role as researcher, educator and friend throughout the study by considering my own biases, expectations and personal educator agenda. The study is divided into two parts. The first comprises correspondence and analysis of (fe)mail between myself and my best friend/co-participant, Atleigh. In Part I, I conduct a narrative analysis of the (fe)mail data produced between us in order to answer the following questions: What qualities of (fe)mail will appear in the exchange? Can (fe)mail be used as a tool for self-care during …

Historical dress as a museum theater and research process encompasses material, technological, and cultural experiences from the past in the present. This research examines how intimate experiences with heritage materials, processes, and environments may impact development of educator pedagogy. Historical attractions in the US draw visitors due in part to providing guests with context for the objects and built environments displayed. New Materialist theory offers insights into how inanimate objects and environments "teach" human and non-human entities in their own right. Using a New Materialist lens, I observed, interviewed, and conducted participant observations through a novel research methodology, intra-active narrative inquiry, with costumed museum educators to better discern how relations between humans and historical materials intra-act as embodied experiences of object knowledge in museum pedagogy.

This study encompasses my attempt to understand the lived experience of students in a higher education art appreciation course when a traditional textbook was replaced by a computer game. The methodology uses a mixture of phenomenological interviews and games as well as game machines to interpret these lived experiences. The process of allowing the research to dictate the direction I would take in my research is central to my research process. The initial research idea evolved into three research games and three versions of those games by using the data from student interviews as a generative data. The implications from this study focus upon creating new pedagogical interventions in the form of a studious labyrinthian pedagogy rather than a finite maze-like approach to art education. This dissertation examines how art education can benefit from more freedom and exploration for students to navigate their own learning.