September 25, 2:00pm - 3:30pm

The 10th anniversary of the Cheuse Center is ongoing and we are excited to bring you our fall programs. The anniversary year coincides with the 250th Anniversary of America’s independence. To mark this landmark year, the Cheuse Center has developed a program on seeing America from the outside in and the inside out.

Drawing together voices from around the world, we have curated a series of events on September 29 around the theme of Translating America (symbolically) in the footsteps of de Tocqueville. Sometimes dated but always relevant, de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’ is one way of seeing America through one man’s eyes, written in French. But what about other voices, what about other languages, what about other ways of seeing?

This panel, organized by Mason Exhibitions, brings together curators and participating artists from a trilogy of veteran art exhibitions on view across George Mason University's three Northern Virginia campuses during Fall 2026. Through artistic practices, storytelling, and public programs, these exhibitions explore the complex geographies of memory, trauma, care, identity, and healing stemming from the Vietnam War up through the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The panel will examine how art can function as a form of witness, dialogue, peacebuilding, and lifesaving.