Susan Bean lectures on the visual culture of modern South Asia in museums, universities, and to cultural organizations. She presented sections on the art of South Asia from the colonial period to the present in a course on Indian art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2012) and on Indian art in America for the Society for Asian Art Lecture Series at Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (2010). During her tenure at the Peabody Essex Museum (1983 – 2012) she was a regular contributor to the docent training program on the art of South Asia and Korea, and spoke in many venues on the museum’s collections. She also provided gallery tours on a wide gamut of exhibitions, from Tibetan Buddhist art to Polynesian barkcloth textiles and Thai sculpture. She taught Art of Modern India in the Department of Art History, Harvard University Extension School in 2004.
Previously she was Assistant and Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Yale University (1978 – 1982) teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in South Asian society and culture and in linguistic anthropology. She served as director of Undergraduate Studies in Anthropology (1978 – 80). After her move to the museum world, she took occasional visiting appointments. As a visiting professor at Wellesley College (1996 – 98) she offered courses on South Asian society and culture in the Anthropology Department and on art and religion in South Asia in the Religion department. She was visiting associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at Brown University (1985 -86) and adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University (1983) where she taught linguistic anthropology.