Get ready for a spectacular party with a French accent! The annual month-long Francophonie Cultural Festival spotlights the music, art, literature, film, cuisine, and customs of French-speaking countries and regions from across the globe. One of the celebration’s highlights, La Grande Fête is always magnifique, and this year’s bash is no exception.
Students are introduced to the materials, tools, and technologies used in collage and assemblage, finding inspiration in artists who worked in collage, including Joseph Cornell, Romare Bearden, and Gertrude Greene.
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 three voyages of Captain James Cook from 1768 to 1779 were filled with high drama, tragedy, intrigue, and humor. Historian Justin M. Jacobs places Cook and his world in historical context, highlights his substantive connections with the Polynesian world, and examines his search for the “Great Southern Continent” and Northwest Passage.
Discover the power of reflective writing guided by the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, Mary Hall Surface. In this workshop, participants explore the innovative compositions of the 20th-century Dutch printmaker M.C. Escher, to discover how his interlocking forms and shifting patterns inspire creative reflection about the connections and transformations in our lives.
Ages 7 to 11. Learn about the systems which built and shape our Mother Earth from her molten beginnings to her many ecosystems of today!
Lift your voice in a choral program that celebrates memorable music across the United States. Conductor Melodia Mae Rinaldi leads the ensemble in arrangements of the hits you know and love. Songs may include favorites by Dolly Parton, Pete Seeger, Stevie Wonder, Irving Berlin, and others. No audition is required and rehearsals culminate in a free performance on June 15 for invited guests.
René Lalique, the daring jeweler of Belle Époque Paris, revolutionized adornment by rejecting gemstone traditions and blending metals with enamel, horn, glass, and semi-precious stones. His nature-inspired creations—dragonflies, orchids, and nymphs—elevated jewelry to fine art, embodying Art Nouveau’s union of art and life. Collaborating with Sarah Bernhardt and elite patrons, Lalique gained acclaim at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Art historian Tosca Ruggieri’s illustrated lecture explores his evolution, techniques, patrons, and rarely seen masterpieces. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
