Jack Kerouac’s On the Road from 1957 is almost synonymous with the postwar Beat and counterculture movements that rejected the staid domesticity of the 1950s in search of freedom and alternate ways of life. Joseph Luzzi, professor of literature at Bard College, discusses how characters based on the writer William S. Burroughs, the poet Allen Ginsberg, and Kerouac himself embraced new cultural forms like jazz and experimental literature as routes to meaning and artistic freedom.
When the doors of Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932, New Yorkers entered a new world: a dazzling Art Deco fantasy of an entertainment palace far removed from the drab realities of the Great Depression. With its Hollywood films and lavish stage shows, “The Showplace of the Nation” has given generations of audiences a place to escape from the everyday and dream. Actor Tim Dolan surveys the history of this iconic theater, sharing its stories, secrets, traditions, and trivia.
Art superstars Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Frida Kahlo didn’t evolve within a vacuum. They descended from centuries of celebrated women artists—as well as those whose names were lost. Art historian Nancy G. Heller traces the history of European and American women artists from the late 16th century to 1950, addressing the socioeconomic, political, and aesthetic significance of their work and placing their lives and art within the context of their male contemporaries. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)
Our understanding of dinosaur behavior has long been hampered by the inevitable lack of evidence from animals that went extinct more than 65 million years ago. But with the discovery of new specimens and the development of cutting-edge techniques, paleontologists are making huge advances in reconstructing how dinosaurs acted. Paleontologist David Hone provides a look at the fundamentals of dinosaur biology and evolution and describes feeding, communication, and social behavior.
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are three influential philosophers whose ideas have significantly shaped political theory and the understanding of the social contract. In a fall series, join Georgetown professor Joseph Hartman as he explores these thinkers who offered distinct perspectives on the nature of human beings, the origins of political authority, and the formation of societies. This session focuses on Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
The boldly passionate musical and dance form of flamenco casts it spell over aficionados around the world. But new fans might find some of its distinctive features puzzling. Flamenco scholar Nancy G. Heller introduces the basic elements and vocabulary of traditional flamenco music and dance, demystifying and enhancing the experience for audiences. She also traces the innovations explored by its avant-garde performers in the 21st century.
Less famous than their Tudor cousins, the Stuart monarchs survived a plot to blow up the government and the only governmental execution of an anointed king in English history to restructure the nature of the monarchy and eventually join England and Scotland into a new nation. Historian Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger examines how four generations of Stuart monarchs—from James I to Queen Anne—led the country from the personal monarchy of the Tudors into the constitutional monarchy and the establishment of Great Britain.
The Arts and Crafts Movement was a dominant influence in visual and decorative arts and architecture in the decades leading up to and after the turn of the 20th century, offering an artistic and philosophical reaction to the florid, overdecorated, and industrialized designs of the high-Victorian era. Art historian Bonita Billman explores the rich flowering of the movement in Britian and America, as well as its enduring legacy. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)