Permission to Care: Sentimentality in Academic Settings—A Conversation between Artists

This article discusses the role of collaboration, gender, and sentimentality as an act of intervention against institutional expectations. Traditionally, women have been under-represented within institutional spaces. As Topaz et al. note, although representation for diverse identities has increased, marginalized people still fight for consideration within these spaces. We investigate the pressure to fit within these tight institutional spaces as women artists. Women are often labeled as “sentimental,” focusing on their emotional capacity rather than intellectual capacity. Therefore, sentimental artists risk being read as less intellectual. As artists labeled sentimental, we push against this limiting notion. We propose that sentimentalism can be used as intervention to create shared empathy with an audience and bring conversations of collaboration, community, and care to the forefront of higher education. To contextualize this, we review two projects: Wack’s home movies series and our collaborative series American Girl Gothic .