Over nearly 250 years, the National Mall has evolved as the center stage of the nation’s capital. The Founding Fathers saw the District of Columbia as a shining beacon of democracy for a newly independent nation, reflected in the L’Enfant Plan’s vision of the National Mall as its ceremonial core. In the first program of a 2-part series, Carolyn Muraskin, founder of DC Design Tours, traces the Mall’s transition from pasture lands to military training grounds and from mud flats to grand monuments, sharing the complex and lesser-known history of some of the most enduring national landmarks. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
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.
World’s fairs have long served as global showcases for innovation, culture, and progress. In a 3-part series, art historian Jennie Hirsh delves into the pivotal exhibitions held in St. Louis in 1904, San Francisco and San Diego in 1915, and Paris in 1925, examining how these landmark events showcased each era’s groundbreaking achievements in technology, culture, science, art, and architecture. This session focuses on the Paris 1925 World's Fair.
A quirky 18th-century international dispute over natural history quickly took on political overtones. Thomas Jefferson wanted to refute a French naturalist’s theory that all life in America was degenerate and weak, so he asked that a large dead moose be shipped to France. The theory, however, continued to have scientific, economic, and political implications for 100 years. Evolutionary biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin highlights this fascinating tale.
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.
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 American War of Independence freed the 13 British colonies in North America from Crown rule and set the stage for the United States’ bold experiment in self-government. Drawing on primary sources, historian Christopher Hamner traces the war from its roots in the crises of the 1770s through the opening campaigns of the conflict, culminating in the American victories at Trenton and Princeton and an examination of British strategy in a springtime series. This session focuses on pre-American Revolution events from the Boston Massacre in 1770 to the battle at Bunker Hill in June 1775.
The recent canonization of Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 at age 15, demonstrates that the desire to venerate holy people is undimmed in the contemporary Catholic Church, says historian Kate E. Bush. She explores how saints have been made through the centuries, detailing how Catholicism moved from accepting saints by popular acclamation to papal canonization. Even today, though, the devotion of everyday people is the main ingredient needed to make a saint, Bush argues.
