Last November, Institute for Global Cultures and Humanities Fellows Douglas Fordham and Amanda Phillips presented a symposium entitled Knowing the World Through Objects in the Eighteenth Century. The event brought together an array of noted scholars to explore the role of objects as evidence and analyzing methods and approaches that might cut across disciplines in the study of intercultural exchange during the period. They included  Michael Yonan (Associate Professor, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century European Art, Director of Graduate Studies, University of Missouri), who spoke on Knowing the World through Rococo Ornamental Prints; Nebahat Avcıoğlu, (Associate Professor of Art History, Hunter College, City University of New York), who spoke on The Pseudomorphosis of Ottoman Costume Albums; and Maia Nuku, (Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Associate Curator for Oceanic Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art), whose topic was Artefacts of Encounter: 18th century Pacific Collecting and Museum Histories. During a break in the program, members of the symposium had the opportunity to view and discuss historic illustrated travel books from the eighteenth century, selected from UVA’s Special Collections and displayed in the Harrison Institute.