Found in every region of the globe, embroidery is one of the world’s most widely shared forms of creative expression—and one of the most varied. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, director of the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands, and author of The Atlas of World Embroidery: A Global Exploration of Heritage and Styles, guides audiences through this rich tapestry, exploring the materials, tools, designs, and symbolic meanings of embroidery, as well as the communities and individual makers who sustain these traditions. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Turkey possesses one of the world’s most fascinating histories and richest cultural heritages. It is at once both Eastern and Western, ancient and modern, Christian and Islamic, sensual and austere. A seminar led by independent scholar Nigel McGilchrist pays tribute to this complexity, celebrating the dramatic beauty of Turkey’s landscapes and its wealth of historic monuments and archaeological treasures. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

For more than 70 years, the adventures of James Bond have thrilled readers and left them wondering if any of his escapades are actually possible. Kathryn Harkup, a former chemist, investigates 007’s exploits and the weapons, technologies, and tactics of his foes. During the process, she assesses the practicalities of building a volcano-based lair and whether being covered in gold paint really would kill you.

Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Join Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for a course of three online workshops that explore essential elements of writing and styles through close looking, word-sketching, and imaginative response to prompts. The sessions spotlight a diverse range of visual art chosen to inspire writers of all experience levels to deepen their process and practice. This writing session is inspired by A Sunburst Restrained by María Berrío.

In the mid-20th century, three trailblazing women journalists bore witness to the great changes happening and transformed readers’ understanding of the world. Martha Gellhorn stowed away in the bathroom of a Red Cross hospital ship to report from Omaha Beach on D-Day. Emily “Mickey” Hahn filed stories from Japanese-occupied Shanghai that transported American readers into the wartime life of a Chinese family. Rebecca West interviewed the sister of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s would-be assassin in 1930s Yugoslavia and then covered the Nuremberg trials. Journalist Julia Cooke shows how these three women not only found stories that others overlooked but also pioneered new ways of telling them.

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?

This spring, 55 colorful carved horses—plus one dragon—will again canter in circles on the National Mall when the Smithsonian Institution’s historic carousel returns after two years of restoration work. Built in 1947, the carousel was moved to the National Mall in 1981. After the Smithsonian purchased it in December 2022, restoration and fabrication experts Carousels and Carvings disassembled the carousel to begin repairing and restoring it. Company owner and president Todd Goings illuminates the intricate process of refurbishing the carousel.

Sir Thomas More, executed in 1535 for defying Henry VIII’s break with Rome, remains a complex figure. Canonized in 1935, he is celebrated for political courage yet criticized for persecuting Protestants. Modern views of More are far more nuanced than those in the famous portrayal of the saint in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, as seen in the broadly negative picture of More in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Historian Jennifer Paxton traces his rise from John Morton’s household to chancellor, his friendship with Erasmus, and his influential Utopia.