By Jonathan Morales

2021年11月19日

Like all students, those in Rachel Miller’s Art History class must complete research projects.

Unlike assignments for most students, however, one required in Miller’s class focuses on a venue often – rightly or wrongly – maligned in academia.

“I ask (my students), ‘Do you ever use Wikipedia?’ ” said Miller, a 萨克拉门托 State assistant professor of Art. “I think they’re often very reluctant to say yes, and then I tell them I use Wikipedia every day.”

从2017年秋季开始，米勒将维基百科的研究和编辑项目纳入了她的课程中，指导学生扩展、纠正或以其他方式改进有关艺术作品的欠佳条目。 特别是，她试图关注代表性不足，改进关于女性作品的文章，并挑战关于女性艺术家的现有叙述。

在这个过程中，学生们会学到对他们将来成为艺术家或艺术史学家有用的技能，比如用非学术语言写作的能力，以及对知名作品进行批判性思考的能力。

The ubiquity of Wikipedia – an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit – in modern life makes it an ideal and necessary venue for this kind of project, Miller said.

“We can’t ignore the fact that people were going to use this source, and therefore it’s better for everyone if the sources can be as reliable as possible,” she said.

In a recent 演讲 about the project during the College of Arts and Letters’ U-Nite ! 事件, Miller outlined the scope of underre演讲. Recent studies demonstrate that between 8.5% and 16% of Wikipedia editors are women, and although data on race is hard to find, most of the website’s editors probably are white, she said.

结果并不令人意外：米勒说，在维基百科编辑最多的10个条目中，没有一个是关于女性的。 Singer Britney Spears, at number 18, is the most-edited article about a woman, followed by entertainer Beyoncé at number 44. Articles about married couples emphasize the men’s achievements but refer to the women primarily as wives. 关于女性的新文章比关于男性的新文章更容易受到质疑。

• Watch Miller’s U-Nite ! 演讲

The Department of Art’s student demographics appear to counter the disparities. 近四分之三的学生是女性，约三分之二的学生的种族认同不是白人。

“There is a culture among Wikipedia editors that makes it hard for especially young women and especially students to get involved,” Miller said. “Just by virtue of being different from the typical Wikipedia editor, I think it makes the culture in Wikipedia editing different. It makes it a more welcoming place for other people to get involved and to edit Wikipedia, and improves the source that literally billions of people use.”

Each semester, Miller peruses Wikipedia articles about artwork that fits the theme of that semester’s class – for the Fall 2021 semester, ancient Greek and Roman art – and looks for red flags that indicate the articles need improving. 一篇极短的文章总是一个很好的选择，就像一篇没有引用的长篇文章一样。 米勒还寻找最近成为学术辩论或争议主题的作品，或者缺少重要的跨文化元素，例如文艺复兴时期的非西方影响。

The painting cited in the U-Nite 演讲, 朱迪思杀死霍洛芬尼斯 by Artemisia Gentileschi, is one familiar to any upper division student, Miller said. Its Wikipedia article was extremely short, however, and what little information was included about the painting took a biographical, almost reductive approach in describing it as a self-portrait and revenge fantasy against Gentileschi’s mentor, who raped her.

Miller’s student expanded the article to center on the work itself: how Gentileschi created it and the artistic techniques she used; 它的历史，接受，以及与她其他画作的关系； 以及学术解释，包括那些挑战自我指涉的观点。

Scott Azevedo, a Spring 2020 student of Miller’s, chose to edit the Wikipedia article on the Zeytun福音, an Armenian illustrated manuscript. The project, he said, was a “game changer” and inspired him to add an Art History major on top of his BFA in Painting.

“It was just really amazing to research that manuscript and then to learn about all the history involved, such as the Armenian genocide, and that part of the world,” said Azevedo, who will graduate this spring. “It broadened my horizons.”

Anya Thompson, a senior double-majoring in Art History and Studio Art, similarly called the project “a seminal point in my art history career in college” that taught her important research and communication skills. She worked on the article for the Renaissance painting 田园音乐会, overhauling the existing, limited information and adding recent scholarship about the piece.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, you can just add to Wikipedia.’ No, you need to have the research. You need to back up your facts,” she said. “I have really like taken that to heart, so anything I go into with art history, now I can back it up, and I can say exactly what I mean with verifiable proof.”