While images are omnipresent and influential in contemporary culture, they are rarely subjected to analysis. Course offerings in Art History teach students to analyze visual imagery – just like words and numbers – rather than simply consume the images that are all around us.​ In addition to instructing students in visual literacy, topics courses provide students with invaluable research, argumentation, writing, and prestation skills while also engaging meaningfully with important topics such as gender, race, and other social issues.​ Engaging deeply and meaningfully with the images of other times and places allows students to appreciate both similarities and differences between times, places, and people. Moreover, because postmodern visual culture so often appropriates styles and images from the past, students can learn to appreciate how the original context of an image informs and enriches its reuse.