How do you bridge the gap between two drastically different fields? For a Notre Dame art historian and chemist, all it took was sharing a classroom for a semester.

Only Connect Chemistry and Art is a course that integrates human experiences by exploring the intersection of two disciplines that, nevertheless, share surprising aspects in common. Taught by Michael Schreffler, a professor of art history and associate dean for the arts in the College of Arts & Letters, and Bahram Moasser, a teaching professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry with the College of Science, the class explores how art and chemistry enrich each other and, at a deeper level, have a common approach to inquiry.

A new College of Arts & Letters video series titled “In Tandem” showcases the importance and value of interdisciplinary research and teaching. In this first installment, Schreffler and Moasser discuss how they began working together, the surprising connections they’ve discovered between art and science, and the ways in which exploring another field has broadened their perspective.

The title of the course is drawn from the epigraph of the E.M. Forster novel Howard’s End, which, through the phrase “Only connect!”, extols the virtues of bringing disparate elements together. Schreffler, who is also the director of Notre Dame’s Arts Initiative, and Moasser have taught the course the past two spring semesters, and no prerequisites are necessary. It fulfills the Core Integration Ways of Knowing requirement in Notre Dame’s Core Curriculum, and is ideal for any student looking to explore connections between disciplines.

Originally published by College of Arts and Letters at al.nd.edu on September 23, 2025.