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.
Monuments and memorials range from monumental and famous to obscure and in danger of being forgotten. Discuss tips, tricks, and strategies to take great photos of such structures, plus statues, fountains, mausolea, battlefields, obelisks, gravestone iconography, cenotaphs, fraternal organization symbolism, and murals.
The English painters, poets, and critics who gave birth to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 sought to reform art by rejecting what they called the melodramatic style of High Renaissance artists like Raphael. In a full-day seminar, art historian Bonita Billman traces this fascinating movement from its origins to flowering conclusion and also examines its influence on the Arts and Crafts movement and its legacy of beauty. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)
In Elizabethan England, feasts were grand, daylong spectacles overflowing with a sumptuous array of fanciful foods (but without knives or forks). Food historian Francine Segan, author of Shakespeare’s Kitchen, serves up rich tidbits of culinary history, introducing Elizabethan cooks, their recipes, and the extravagant dining customs of 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Fire-breathing roast peacock anyone?
Through the story of a pebble, paleobiologist Jan Zalasiewicz illuminates a complex history that begins in the farthest reaches of space and continues on Earth with volcanic eruptions, extinct animals and plants, long-vanished oceans, and transformations deep underground. The pebble’s story shows how geologists reveal the Earth’s past by forensic analysis of even the tiniest amounts of mineral matter crammed into a pebble.
Islamic art and architecture are both distinctive and varied. Art historian Sean Roberts provides an overview of the historical and societal contexts in which this tradition developed. The narrative covers 14 centuries and spans from the central Islamic lands across the globe. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest and most technologically dynamic campaign of the Second World War, a vast contest in which engineering ingenuity, intelligence breakthroughs, and industrial capacity proved as decisive as bravery at sea. U.S. Naval Academy historian Marcus Jones offers a sweeping narrative of the struggle from 1939 to 1945, presenting the Atlantic war as a complex, interlocking system, one in which science, strategy, and endurance combined to determine the fate of nations: a story of innovation under pressure and survival against the odds.
Pop culture is populated by plenty of fictional cephalopod and cephalopod-inspired characters, from Squidward of “SpongeBob SquarePants” to the heptapod aliens of Arrival. Whether these portrayals accurately represent the biology, anatomy, and behavior of the animals that inspired them is another question. Come find out how quickly Finding Dory’s Hank could regenerate his eighth arm and whether a kraken could really sink a ship as cephalopod expert Danna Staaf proves that truth can be stranger than fiction.
