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?
Pull out your sketchbook and pencil to take an artful break as you explore the Smithsonian while drawing objects from vast and fascinating collections.
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 Massachusetts 54th Regiment, one of the first African American units in the Civil War, fought under Col. Robert Gould Shaw, a white officer who shared their commitment to freedom. They famously led the July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, where nearly half, including Shaw, were killed. Paul Glenshaw examines how Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial, unveiled in 1897 on Boston Common, honored their sacrifice with individualized portraits of the soldiers. At its dedication, the memorial reflected a growing recognition of Black soldiers’ valor and the war’s legacy of emancipation. (World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit)
The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, by the young architect Walter Gropius, was part Modernist school of art and design and part dream factory. Students were taught in workshops led by both craftsmen and artists and the curriculum included everything from fine art, typography, and graphic design to interior design and architecture. In a 4-part series, art historian Joseph Paul Cassar explores the importance and enduring influence of the Bauhaus. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)
At the start of 1776, few Americans sought independence, grounding their protests instead in the rights of British subjects. By year’s end, independence had become unavoidable. Historian Edward J. Larson chronicles this pivotal year in American history, from the inspiring appeals of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in January; through midsummer, when the Second Continental Congress grounded independence in the “self-evident” truths of human equality and individual rights; to Paine’s urgent pleas of December, when “the times that try men’s souls” required Americans not to “shrink from the service of their country.”
Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents, founded in 1445, was Europe’s first orphanage for abandoned children. Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, the institution known as the Innocenti became a haven for more than 400,000 children across five centuries. Joseph Luzzi, a professor of literature at Bard College, explores how the Innocenti revolutionized our understanding of childhood through its breakthroughs in childcare and childhood education.
Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishing array of species that are present nearly everywhere humans call home. They are delicate creatures with hollow bones and thin skin protected by feathers, but birds actually evolved from dinosaurs over 150 million years ago. Evolutionary biologist Steve Brusatte investigates why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the cataclysmic asteroid impact 66 million years ago and chronicles how these survivors proliferated to produce the many species seen today.
