Programs

The 48th season of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society features musical masterpieces from the late-16th to the early 21st century, played on some of the world’s most highly prized musical instruments in a 6-concert series held on Sundays. This concert features music of John Jenkins and William Lawes with the Smithsonian Consort of Viols.

The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze, or Gallery of the Academy of Florence, is best known as the home of Michelangelo’s sculpture “David.” However, the museum is also home to several other important sculptures by Michelangelo as well as a large collection of paintings by Florentine artists. Italian Renaissance art expert Rocky Ruggiero highlights this small but mighty museum that owns four of Michelangelo’s “Slave” sculptures, Pontormo’s Venus and Cupid, and Maestro della Maddalena’s St. Mary Magdalene and Eight Stories of Her Life. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

For most of us, poetry is intimidating. Humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson marks National Poetry Month by offering ways for those who are new to the form to approach poetry with comfort, confidence, and joy. For those who know poetry well, he provides a reminder of why good poetry is so satisfying—and necessary to a healthy civilization. Join him in a lecture that explores short poems by authors who span the centuries.

After being guided through mindfulness activities that teach you to make embodied choices in art making, delve into emphasizing process over product and play over perfection. Expect a class grounded in both creative theory and therapeutic principles that deepen your relationship with yourself as an artist and as a person.

Americans work more hours, take fewer days off, move more for their jobs, and enjoy fewer benefits than anyone else in the Western working world. Drawing on his book 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life, Adam Chandler examines the realities of how work defines us and what work culture costs us. He unpacks what he sees as the misguided obsession with hard work that has come to define both the American dream and nightmare, offering insights into how we got here and blueprints for a better and more sustainable way forward.

This is a fun, relaxing class that presents facts and trivia about orchids, discusses famous orchids, and explains how 120 million years of evolution have created the family of flowering plants that we know as Orchidaceae.

At its peak, the Roman empire extended from Britain to the Sahara Desert, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates River. Yet in 476, the last western Roman emperor was deposed. In a 4-part series, historian David Gwynn analyzes the dramatic events which shaped the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the west, exploring the transformation from the ancient to the medieval world that laid the foundations for modern Europe. This session focuses on the impact of Goths, Huns, and Vandals.

What do the music of J.S. Bach, the fundamental forces of nature, Rubik’s Cube, and the selection of mates have in common? They are all characterized by certain symmetries— the concept that bridges science and art. Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio explains how symmetry underlies not only some of the most important phenomena in our lives and in the evolution of humans, but also the laws governing our universe.

For approximately five centuries during the second millennium B.C.E., the Egyptian city of Thebes served as the backdrop for the construction of a bewildering array of religious temples, memorial complexes, and royal tombs. Historian Justin M. Jacobs introduces the chief cultural, religious, and political themes of the monuments of ancient Thebes: the Karnak and Luxor temples of the East Bank, the memorial temples of the West Bank, and the necropolis in the Valley of the Kings.

For much of the 20th century, the deli was an iconic institution in both Jewish and American life, a kind of homeland for the soul—with pickles on the side. Today, after a long period of being considered hopelessly old-fashioned, the Jewish deli is experiencing a resurgence. Ted Merwin, author of Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History, discusses the past, present, and future of the deli in an age of ethnic nostalgia, sustainability, and artisanal food and drink.