The Politics of method. -- Labyrinths of meaning in Vanderlyn's Ariadne. -- Bingham's Boone. -- Reconstructing Duncanson. -- Lilly Martin Spencer's domestic genre painting in antebellum America. -- Guys and dolls: framing femininity in post-Civil War America. -- Masculinity, nostalgia, and the trompe l'oeil still-life paintings of William Harnett