Andrew Knoll, paleontologist and geobiologist, argues that understanding Earth’s history requires both geology and biology. Over 4 billion years, Earth and life have co-shaped one another: rocks, water, and air cycle essential elements, regulating climate and atmosphere while enabling life’s diversification. By tracing these dynamic interactions, Knoll reveals how physical processes and biological evolution together made our planet habitable, sustaining the soil, air, and ecosystems that underpin the world we know today.
The 250th anniversary of the United States marks a milestone, representing two and a half centuries of upholding democracy, building communities, and working to become a more perfect union. In celebration, the Smithsonian Institution created a new book, The Promise of a Nation: Commemorating 250 Years of Patriotism, Resilience, and Aspirations from the National Collection, in which curators reflect on how objects and people have shaped the national identity. During an evening presentation, Smithsonian experts share the story of how this publication came together, focusing on selected decades from the 1770s to the 2020s.
Create your own story as you learn to upcycle book pages as surfaces for drawing, painting, and collage using gelatin plate prints, textures, photo transfers, drawing, painting, and text redaction.
Step behind the silver screen with author and design historian Cathy Whitlock as she explores the artistry that brings movies to life. Based on her book Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction, Whitlock leads a journey through the sets, locations, and design stories behind films such as Gone with the Wind, The Great Gatsby, and La La Land.
The picture-perfect snowcapped cone of Mount Fuji has attracted Japanese artists and pilgrims for more than a thousand years. Historian Justin M. Jacobs examines the history of human influences on this dormant volcano and its dynamic—and symbolic—role in Japanese history, including the elaborate network of Shinto and Buddhist shrines that that have drawn countless pilgrims from far away.
Smithsonian Chamber Music Society audiences are privy to the unparalleled experience of being able to hear two magnificent quartets of instruments—one made by Antonio Stradivari, the other by his teacher Nicoló Amati—in this popular four-concert series on Saturdays. This concert features music composed by Haydn, Bartók, and Beethoven.
Historian Daniel Schlafly and limnologist Michael Meyer explore the intertwined natural and human histories of Lake Baikal, from its geological origins at least 25 million years ago to the present. The lake is both the deepest and the most voluminous in the world. More than a thousand plant and animal species live here and nowhere else. Its human history has been touched by Cossacks and the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and its waters hold profound spiritual meaning for the indigenous Buryat Mongols.
Found in every region of the globe, embroidery is one of the world’s most widely shared forms of creative expression—and one of the most varied. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, director of the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands, and author of The Atlas of World Embroidery: A Global Exploration of Heritage and Styles, guides audiences through this rich tapestry, exploring the materials, tools, designs, and symbolic meanings of embroidery, as well as the communities and individual makers who sustain these traditions. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
