What Gets Covered in ‘Coverage’?

Lloyd’s in the early 19th century (above). The insurance business has been around longer than the word “coverage.”

Curricular conversations nationwide lament, cheer, and debate the decline of something once called, without irony, “coverage.”

More than a decade ago, a senior art historian confided to me that “coverage is dead.” Art history required new ways of thinking about what gets taught and how.

Many of us, though, may still think in terms of some sort of coverage.

We will cover the history...