“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Public Engagement* *But Were Afraid to Ask” is the product of a course of the same name led by creative laborer, educator, radical community arts organizer, and writer Jen Delos Reyes for the Museum and Exhibition Studies graduate program at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the spring of 2019. The course was designed as a series of public programs featuring diverse guests who shared candidly on their experiences, strategies, and hopes for public engagement in museums, cultural institutions, and beyond.

This book features transcriptions of interviews with January Parkos Arnall, Curator of Public Engagement at the MCA, Kristen Kaza and Elijah McKinnon, Co-Founders of Reunion, Carrie Sandahl-Director of the Program on Disability Art, Culture and Humanities at UIC, Lisa Yun Lee -Director of the National Museum of Public Housing, and Michael Christiano- Deputy Director and Curator of Public Practice at the Smart Museum of Art, as well as an essay by Anthony Stepter, and documentation of the student events created as part of this class.