In this solar system, Venus is the planet most like Earth in size and density, yet it has a toxic atmosphere and is the hottest planet, contrasting with habitable Earth. Astrophysicist Stephen Kane reveals clues that point to a possible habitable past of Venus and discusses how its environment might have become hostile to life.
With its lavender-laced valleys, seashores, medieval hill towns, and lively cities, the south of France is downright seductive. Travel writer Barbara Noe Kennedy offers a 4-part virtual tour of Provence and the Côte d’Azur and a guide to the regions’ most intriguing sights, historical aspects, food and wine, and art. This session highlights some of the South of France’s lesser-known charms.
While the historical relationship of India and Great Britain is well-known, events in other countries also affected how India developed into the country it is today. Author Fazle Chowdhury unravels the complicated history of India from its existence as a British colony to an independent Asian nation including the impact of seemingly unrelated factors on its history.
Internationally renowned for iconic works such as Under the Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai designed popular woodblock prints on a range of subjects for more than five decades. National Museum of Asian Art curator Kit Brooks examines his print works. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Celebrate the start of summer with a delicious evening at Gravitas in D.C., a Michelin-starred modern American restaurant by chef Matt Baker dedicated to seasonal cooking and sourcing from local farms and waters. Baker’s four-course menu plus canapes specially designed for the event showcases the summer bounty of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Smithsonian Associates’ favorite sommelier Erik Segelbaum, who leads the popular Wine Adventures series, pairs wines with the courses with a focus on hidden gems. Chef Baker and Segelbaum are on hand to talk about the food and drink.
Aaron Burr was a hero of the Revolutionary War, a United States senator, and the third vice president, preceded only by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Yet his legacy is usually defined by his role in the presidential election of 1800, his potential attempt to create a breakaway nation for which he faced a trial for treason, and most notably his 1804 duel with Hamilton leading to Burr’s indictment in two states for murder. Historian Ralph Nurnberger discusses the many facets of this fascinating early American political leader and whether he’s best remembered as a patriot or a villain.
Join geologist Kirt Kempter as he explores the geology of Western National Parks over the course of 2023, with an in-depth look at one location every month. This program spotlights the Death Valley National Park in California as part of a spring series, focused on parks in Utah, New Mexico, and California.
The Treaty of Versailles, designed to be the final chapter of World War I, was the handiwork of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Premier Georges Clemenceau, and American President Woodrow Wilson. Their idealistic goal of establishing "not Peace only, but Eternal Peace" was never realized. Historian Kevin Matthews explores how that unfulfilled legacy is still being played out in Asia and the Middle East and in Europe and the United States as well as how the men of Versailles created the world we live in.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s work reflected one central tenet: “To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful and pretty. …There are too many ugly things in life as it is without creating still more of them.” He reveled in lush color that can be seen in his sensual nudes, family portraits, landscapes, and genre depictions such as The Luncheon of the Boating Party. Art historian Bonita Billman showcases selections from his more than 4,000 works as she illustrates why Renoir is one of the most highly regarded—and joyful—artists of his time. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
During the Late Bronze Age, the Mediterranean region was the stage on which Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots, Trojans, and Canaanites interacted—a cosmopolitan world system that came to a dramatic halt in 1177 B.C. Historian Eric Cline surveys a period of achievement, upheaval, and catastrophe as he draws on the newest data on the civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean and their fates.
For centuries, the coastal location and diverse landscape of Maine’s Acadia National Park have drawn people in search of beauty and inspiration. The region also has been a haven for scientists, whose written records, specimen collections, and oral histories have provided baselines for understanding environmental change. Author and scientist Catherine Schmitt shares the story of science in Acadia.
Take a visual journey through the years of World War II in Poland and related significant locations—Warsaw, Krakow, and Gdansk—as author and tour guide Christopher Skutela sheds light on the war and its implications. Knowing what happened in Poland provides a deeper understanding of the history of the rest of Europe and a perspective that can help create a better future, Skutela says.
There’s nothing "Mickey Mouse" about the impact the Walt Disney Company has had on the entertainment business. Media historian Brian Rose traces how the company evolved from a small cartoon studio in 1923 to one of the most powerful forces in worldwide entertainment today.
Did Britain’s Lord Elgin rescue ancient Greek marble sculptures and architectural fragments—including a 24-foot marble frieze—from the Parthenon in the early 19th century or did he steal them? Greece's position is clear: The country wants them back from the British Museum. Join art historian Joseph Cassar in an exploration of these ancient sculptures made under the supervision of architect and sculptor Phidias and the controversies that have swirled around them since they left Greece. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
As members of the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers in colonial America were the first group of white Christians to confront slaveholding as a religious problem that demanded social action. Historian Richard Bell recounts this untold story, focusing on the dramatic antislavery crusades and wildly different tactics of three 18th-century Quakers: Benjamin Lay, a hermit; John Woolman, a shopkeeper; and Anthony Benezet, a schoolteacher.
Herman Melville’s tale of yearning, obsession, wreckage, and deliverance has drawn generations of readers into its obsessive, unfinished quest. They’ve seen reflected in its pages the urgent questions of their times, including issues of democracy, race, sexuality, labor, and environment. Samuel Otter, a professor of English at Berkeley University, explores the reception of Moby-Dick, ways of reading this surprising and heterogeneous book, and the strange qualities of a work that attempts, as one critic noted, to “incorporate everything.”
In 1940, Winston Churchill famously ordered his Special Operations Executive to “set Europe ablaze.” Soon this top-secret army of mavericks began a program of sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines. Historian Rory Cormac traces how Churchill’s enthusiasm for intelligence operations drove a global secret war.
We used to think of fossils as being composed of nothing but rock and minerals, but we were wrong. Today, scientists and the science of ancient biomolecules—pigments, proteins, and DNA that once functioned in living, but now extinct, organisms—are opening a new window onto the evolution of life on Earth. Dale E. Greenwalt, a research associate at the National Museum of Natural History, is your guide to these astonishing breakthroughs.
Relations between the United States and China are at their lowest point since the 1970s. The superpowers are still highly integrated through trade and conflict remains unlikely, but what President Biden calls an “extreme competition” is well underway. Three of Washington’s leading analysts provide insights into whether and how U.S.-China relations can be managed peacefully in a panel moderated by Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
Water has shaped civilizations and driven centuries of advances in science, technology, health, and medicine. But these achievements brought consequences: unsustainable water use, ecological destruction, and global climate change. Scientist and water expert Peter Gleick outlines how the lessons of the past can be the foundation of action to support a sustainable future for water and the planet.
Whether early stone carvings or produced by satellite imagery, maps are part science and part art—and an indispensable reflection of the way we view our world and ourselves. Geographer John Rennie Short, author of Cartographic Encounters: Indigenous Peoples and the Exploration of The New World, chronicles the dramatic evolution of mapmaking over the course of human history.
Many famous fairy tales—think Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk—appear to be quite conventional. But they can be wonderfully disruptive to our expectations. Folklorists Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman discuss modern LGBTQ+ twists on old tales and share some very unconventional fairy tales.
For several days after the death of young King Edward VI in early July 1553, two women considered themselves the ruler of England: his Catholic half-sister Mary Tudor and Lady Jane Grey Dudley. Tudor scholar and historian Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger explores the woman at the heart of the conflict as she considers the life and character of Jane Grey; the political and personal forces at play in Tudor England; Jane’s complicated relationship with Mary Tudor—and why it was necessary for one of them to lose her life.
The Glass House, the iconic former Connecticut home of architect Philip Johnson, is now a National Trust for Historic Preservation site that serves as a center for art, architecture, and culture. Hilary Lewis, chief curator of the Glass House, examines it as a signature work of modern architecture, its roles as a laboratory for architecture and a salon for the arts, and the extraordinary and complex figure behind it. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Jews through the ages were seen as pious and thoroughly immersed in Jewish life, standing apart, often by force, from their non-Jewish neighbors. But rare materials in the Jewish Theological Seminary Library offer a different, more nuanced picture. David Kraemer, the library’s director, examines how specific communities of Jews lived with their neighbors, experiencing life first as human beings and then as Jews.
Long-term drought, vast population growth, and wasteful agricultural practices rooted in a century-old legal compact have triggered a crisis along the Colorado River. In a two-part series, Bill Keene, a lecturer in history, urban studies, and architecture, reviews the backstories and contemporary repercussions of major water shortages in the American West and explores possible methods of providing water for some 44 million people in seven states and portions of Northern Mexico who depend on the Colorado River.
William Louis-Dreyfus (1932–2016) was a poet, businessman, and committed art collector whose collection of close to 4,000 works represents over 50 years of discovery and dedication. Shaped by curiosity, an open mind, and a lifelong fascination with the power of visual media, Louis-Dreyfus’s collection remains remarkable today for its depth and diversity. Get an introduction to this one-of-a-kind collection in a program that begins with a recorded message by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus about her late father’s passion for art. Then, Paul Glenshaw (of Smithsonian Associates’ Art+History series) hosts a live-streamed illustrated lecture about this extraordinary and fascinating collection presented by Mary Anne Costello and Christina Kee, the curators at the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Germany has some of the world's most challenging vineyards to maintain, but the effort is well worth it. Erik Segelbaum reveals why the country’s wines are mainstays of any sommelier's toolkit for food-and-wine pairings in a delicious exploration of the wines of Germany and their rich histories.
The pterosaurs are the flying reptiles so often mistakenly called pterodactyls. Although pterosaurs’ fossils are rarer than those of their dinosaur cousins, we still have a remarkable range of them, from sparrow-sized babies to giants with wingspans of nearly 33 feet. Paleontologist David Hone dives into what we know about these fascinating flying reptiles.
With their forward gaze and quiet flight, owls are often a symbol of wisdom, knowledge, and foresight. But what does an owl really know? And what do we really know about owls? Jennifer Ackerman, author of the New York Times bestseller The Genius of Birds, pulls back the curtain on the nature of the world’s most enigmatic birds as she explores the rich biology and natural history of owls and examines remarkable new scientific discoveries about their brains and behavior.
Discover the joy and power of reflective writing inspired by visual art. Guided by the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s Writing Salon, Mary Hall Surface, writers of all levels can slow down, look closely, question, wonder, and write inspired by Hughie Lee-Smith's intriguing painting The Beach. These reflections can become fertile creative ground for memoir, poetry, and more.
Meet your new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau. In their book Henry at Work, John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle rethink how we work today by exploring an overlooked aspect of the multi-faceted transcendentalist: Thoreau the worker. They reveal that his ideas have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation in which many people are reconsidering their working lives.
Being just the right distance from the sun helps make Earth habitable, but the composition of our atmosphere is a key ingredient. Natalie Burls, the director of the Climate Dynamics Program at George Mason University, discusses the crucial role Earth’s atmosphere plays in determining its climate, how Earth’s climate has varied in the past, and how we are the changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere and thus its climate.
Learn the history behind who made steel in the United States, starting with the time of the Civil War, and where steel is made today. Using dramatic imagery from the National Museum of Industrial History and the Historic American Engineering Record, historian Mike Piersa and photographer Jeremy Blakeslee vividly showcase the growth, evolution, and sometimes death of facilities that were capable of producing millions of tons of steel per year.
When Nazi Germany seized land from Czechoslovakia in 1938, the military force of an isolationist United States was smaller than Portugal’s. But that same year, President Franklin Roosevelt’s order to dramatically expand domestic U.S. airplane production was the first step in the monumental transformation of American enterprise that brought victory in World War II. Historian Craig Nelson shares how FDR’s skillful leadership turned a nation wary of war into an arsenal of democracy ready to take on the dangers of another world war.
Join geologist Kirt Kempter as he explores the geology of Western National Parks over the course of 2023, with an in-depth look at one location every month. This program spotlights Yosemite National Park as part of a summer series, focused on parks in California, Oregon, and Wyoming.
Dorothy Liebes was one of the most influential textile designers of the mid-20th century. The exhibition “A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes” opens at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum on July 7. Join organizers Susan Brown, associate curator and acting head of textiles, and Alexa Griffith Winton, manager of content and curriculum, to explore Liebes’ life and work.
At the nationally celebrated Moon Rabbit restaurant at The Wharf in Washington, D.C, chef Kevin Tien oversees a menu that’s a love letter to his heritage as a first-generation Asian-American and showcases dishes that tell his life story. Join him for a specially designed four-course dinner that reflects his upbringing in Southern Louisiana by pairing Vietnamese traditions with Cajun flavors, resulting in what he calls Viet-Cajun cuisine.
For centuries, people have speculated about the possibility of planets orbiting distant stars, but only since the 1990s has technology allowed astronomers to detect them. Astrophysicist Joshua Winn provides an inside view of the detective work astronomers perform as they find and study exoplanets and describes the surprising—sometimes downright bizarre—planets and systems they have found. He also considers how the discovery of exoplanets and their faraway solar systems changes our perspectives on the universe and our place in it.
We’ve all heard of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, that trinity of askers of questions—often without answers. But Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes contemplated, questioned, and theorized before Socrates, and important philosophers followed Aristotle, such as Epicurus and Zeno. Author and professor Ori Z. Soltes considers how these brilliant minds addressed the varied layers of reality and why so many of their conclusions remain exciting and relevant.
From the vantage point of 71 years, the monumental Normandy invasion smoothly unfolded on June 6, 1944, according to a meticulously detailed plan, with 3 million men, 47 divisions, and 6,000 ships piercing Nazi defenses in an inevitable and unstoppable march to Berlin. In reality, Operation Overlord was an almost-impossible political and logistical nightmare to conceive and execute. David Eisenhower provides a wider panorama of the daring cross-Channel operation that opened a new Western front under the leadership of his grandfather General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
Off the coast of southern California, the 8 Channel Islands and their encircling waters are home to over 2,000 species of animals and plants—145 of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Jasmine Reinhardt, a National Park Service interpretation and education program manager, covers the diverse history, geography, and unique flora and fauna of these islands, as well and the people who were drawn to them over the centuries and those who protect them today.
Sometimes scary but always intriguing, the world’s top predators also are quite necessary. Robert Johnson, a wildlife specialist and conservationist; Sharon Gilman, a biology professor specializing in vertebrates and science education; and Dan Abel, a marine science professor and shark specialist, share facts and tell stories about these fearsome and often misunderstood animals.
Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli never considered herself a dressmaker. Instead, she saw herself as an artist working in the medium of fabric, often in tandem with the subversive artists and photographers of the 1930s. Historian and curator Elizabeth Lay examines how Schiaparelli and the Surrealists experimented with new materials and a new artistic expression as Europe moved closer and closer to war. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Washington’s movers and shakers once strolled the streets of Dupont Circle, where Massachusetts Avenue was the city’s most fashionable residential address with opulent mansions built to impress Washington society. After the Great Depression, many of these magnificent houses were converted into embassies, social clubs, and offices. Carolyn Muraskin, founder of DC Design Tours, offers stories of the capital’s ruling class and their links to the history of Washington’s premier promenade.
Our native forests, meadows, and wetlands are nature’s grocery store, chock-full of enticing raw ingredients just ready for the picking. Liana Vitali, a naturalist at Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary and Anne Arundel County Park Ranger Victor Jones explore the makings of foraged feasts that can be found in the mid-Atlantic region. They serve up video vignettes that include cooking demonstrations of their favorite natural edible treats as well as go-to recipes for noshing on nature—ethically and sustainably of course.
The year 1973 offered plenty of social and political drama, but amid the crises it was a remarkable one for filmmakers throughout the world. Grab your popcorn and join film historian Max Alvarez as he toasts a remarkable year at the movies, one in which theater screens (remember them?) lit up with The Exorcist, Amacord, The Way We Were, Last Tango in Paris, Paper Moon, and François Truffaut’s valentine to cinema Day for Night.
From pulled pork to ribs to brisket, African American barbeque has something to tempt everyone. In his first cookbook, pitmaster Ed Mitchell explores the method that made him famous: North Carolina whole-hog barbeque. Mitchell and his collaborators on Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, his son Ryan Mitchell and food historian Zella Palmer, join barbeque historian Howard Conyers for a conversation on the rich history and traditions of African American barbeque.
From Amarone to Barbera, Brunello to Chianti, Chiavennasca, and everything beyond, sommelier Erik Segelbaum explores Italy’s grapes and regions, proving that the alphabet never tasted so good. This immersive program includes a curated personal tasting kit to enhance the experience.
Curator Elizabeth Lay welcomes John Botello, creative manager of the White House–Executive Residence, for an image-rich program on 21st-century style at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He offers behind-the-scenes glimpses of his work on events and interior design, and shares what goes into planning—down to the smallest detail—projects from a state dinner to the annual holiday decorations.
Far from simply being a president who was assassinated weeks after taking office, James Garfield might be the most accomplished American statesman of the 19th century says his biographer C.W. Goodyear. He shines a spotlight on a forgotten president and progressive statesman who quietly shaped the rise—and fall—of Reconstruction and was a national peacemaker whose attempts to heal rifts in the postwar Republican Party resulted in his murder.
Planetary scientist Rebecca Ghent, co-investigator on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, discusses our Moon’s history of impact cratering and examines the significance of the impact record for understanding the evolution of the Moon and other solar system bodies.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women, and although some causes are genetic, most heart disease is rooted in lifestyle. Physician John Whyte, chief medical officer of WebMD, separates heart-health fact from fiction and provides practical advice that can help reduce your risk of a heart attack.
Labeled a Surrealist because of the fantastical, often nightmarish quality of her paintings, Frida Kahlo always countered that she didn’t paint dreams: She painted her own reality. Art historian Nancy G. Heller examines the brief, often-difficult life that shaped that reality and examines Kahlo’s work, looking beyond the famous self-portraits to include landscapes, still lifes, and other distinctive subjects.(World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
George Washington left America only once, when he sailed to Barbados with his half-brother Lawrence in 1751. Historian Ralph Nurnberger details this lesser-known but significant voyage and highlights the impact it had on the 19-year-old Washington, his career, and the outcome of the American Revolution.
Historian Dan Flores chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in North America—a place shaped by evolutionary forces and momentous arrivals of humans from Asia, Africa, and Europe. These arrivals precipitated a massive disruption of the teeming environment they found. In telling the story, Flores sees humans not as a species apart but as a new animal entering a place that had never seen our like before.
Join geologist Kirt Kempter as he explores the geology of Western National Parks over the course of 2023, with an in-depth look at one location every month. This program spotlights Lassen Volcanic and Crater Lake National Parks as part of a summer series, focused on parks in California, Oregon, and Wyoming.
Few people are neutral about Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She generated legions of fans—and detractors—through her bestselling books The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and the philosophy of Objectivism she founded and espoused. Why is Rand so controversial to this day? Onkar Ghate, a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, explores some of the central ideas of Rand’s worldview and why they continue to draw both devoted adherents and impassioned rejection.
Forty thousand years ago, humans began to paint animals, mysterious symbols, and even people on cave walls. For over a century, researchers have been interested in how these images were created and what they might have meant. Paleolithic archaeologist April Nowell explores cave art and related objects and how cutting-edge technology is leading to a new understanding of the lives of Ice-Age peoples. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
For more than seven decades, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks made America laugh. Media historian Brian Rose takes a look at (and gives a listen to) their extraordinary achievements, from their work together on comedian Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows” and their creation of the classic 2,000-year-old man sketches to their accomplishments as writers, directors, and performers.
Each of us began life as a single cell, eventually emerging as a dazzlingly complex, exquisitely engineered assemblage of trillions. This metamorphosis constitutes one of nature’s most spectacular yet commonplace magic tricks—and one of its most coveted secrets. Physician and researcher Ben Stanger offers a glimpse into what scientists are discovering about how life and the body take shape, and how these revelations stand to revolutionize medicine and the future of human health.
Sake, the national drink of Japan, is making its mark in the United States. Sake expert and professional kikizakeshi (sake sommelier) Jessica Joly-Crane of Sake Discoveries discusses the basics behind this historic, yet revolutionary drink. Learn about sake’s history, how it’s made, and how it’s categorized. Then use your new-found knowledge as you enjoy samples of sake following the presentation.
The great 16th-century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder may be best remembered as one of the pioneers of genre scenes in Renaissance art. However, this master of the ordinary, especially of scenes inspired by peasant life, was steeped in the humanist culture of his era. Art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine explores how Breugel’s wonderful inventiveness and wit are reflected throughout his oeuvre—where almost every painting becomes a point of departure for a deeper philosophical consideration. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
In a program highlighted by live performances, pianist and lecturer Rachel Franklin traces Kurt Weill’s creative journey from Weimar Germany to Broadway. He explores the early works that led to Weill’s extraordinary partnership with Bertolt Brecht and his subsequent artistic evolution in the United States, working with lyricists including Ira Gershwin, Langston Hughes, and Maxwell Anderson—collaborations that produced such beloved songs as “Speak Low,” “September Song,” “Lost in the Stars,” and “My Ship.”
At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna was the capital of a great empire ruled by the Hapsburgs. The city was a center of political power as well as avant-garde culture, home to some of the world’s greatest composers, architects, writers, and artists. Two who helped define this age of glamour, elegance, and decadence were artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Art critic and advisor Judy Pomeranz explores the lives and art of these extraordinary individuals, examines how they were influenced by their time and place, and illustrates how powerfully they reflected them in works both beautiful and shocking. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
America’s most famous avenue, connecting the White House and U.S. Capitol, hasn’t always been a grand thoroughfare. Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding neighborhood has been renovated, re-imagined, and revitalized over and over again. From Murder Bay, a center of crime, gambling, and prostitution to the stately boulevard of presidential inaugurations, Carolyn Muraskin, founder of DC Design Tours, unfolds the story of a metamorphosis along America’s Main Street.
For centuries, people believed the deep was a sinister realm of fiendish creatures and deadly peril. But as cutting-edge technologies have allowed scientists and explorers to dive miles beneath the surface, we are beginning to understand this underworld: It’s a place of soaring mountains, smoldering volcanoes, pink gelatinous predators, and sharks that live for half a millennium. Join award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Susan Casey for a dive into the deep ocean.
Reflecting thousands of grape varieties, Italian wine is an immensely complex subject that can make even the most knowledgeable sommelier's head spin. Sommelier Erik Segelbaum unravels the subject in a delicious exploration of some wonderful yet lesser-known Italian wines. This immersive program includes a curated personal tasting kit to enhance the experience.
Experience the power of reflective writing guided by the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, Mary Hall Surface. Inspired by works of art by Georgia O'Keeffe and poetry by Mary Oliver, explore the lessons that the summer season offers us when we slow down, look closely, and reflect. The workshop is designed for writers of all levels.
Americans today expect their president to be not only chief executive, commander in chief, chief consoler, and chief crisis manager. They also expect our national leader to be our celebrity in chief. In an era in which media stardom is a key part of public life, a president needs to hold people's interest and entertain them, says Ken Walsh, a 30-year veteran of U.S. News & World Report’s White House beat. Join him as he surveys the presidents across the centuries who made the most effective use of their celebrity, those who didn’t—and why.
Bonsai, tiny trees in pots or miniature landscapes on trays, have delighted and intrigued people for centuries. Join Michael James, the U.S. National Arboretum’s bonsai curator, and Ann McClellan, author of Bonsai and Penjing: Ambassadors of Peace and Beauty, for an an illustrated talk about the arboretum’s National Bonsai & Penjing Museum and its unique collections. They share stories about how the diminuitive trees were created and came to Washington, plus a few tips on how to care for them.
The history of medicine is replete with advances made by hard-working maverick doctors who made astonishing progress against humankind’s deadliest diseases. Yet surgeon Andrew Lam says one factor spurred more medical breakthroughs than any other: war. He reveals how D-Day, Luftwaffe bombing raids, top-secret Liberty ship cargo, and aerial dogfights bequeathed to humanity innovations in surgery, cancer treatment, and trauma care that still serve us today.
To many people, a skeleton is just a hopeless pile of bones. But to a forensic anthropologist, skeletal remains are the key to identifying an individual and how and when they died. And nowhere else do they get a better understanding of decomposition than at the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, aka the body farm. Dawnie Wolfe Steadman, the director of the center, digs into how forensic anthropologists from around the world learn from these bodies.
Perhaps no other single day in U.S. history was as threatening to the survival of the nation as August 24, 1814, when British forces captured Washington, D.C. This unique moment significantly altered the nation’s path forward, but the event and the reasons behind it are little remembered by most Americans. Historian Robert P. Watson examines the British campaign and American missteps that led to the fall of Washington during the War of 1812, the actions of key figures on both sides of the conflict, and the individuals who risked their lives to save priceless artifacts and documents from the flames.
The paintings of the Hudson River School artists define our image of early 19th-century America. Works by Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Edwin Church, and other lesser-known artists synthesize the spirit of European landscape masters with the distinctly American view of nature, science, and spirituality reflected in Thoreau and Emerson. Art historian Heidi Applegate examines why the Hudson River School artists were so popular, how they fell out of favor, and why their art has generated renewed interest. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
In 17th-century Rome, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, assembled one of the greatest art collections in history, which is still displayed today in the Borghese Gallery. Renaissance art expert Rocky Ruggiero examines the history of the Borghese Gallery and its collection of artistic treasures. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
There’s more to keeping your brain in tip-top shape and lowering your risk for dementia than crossword puzzles, brain games, and Sudoku according to scientist and author Marc Milstein. Drawing on his book The Age-Proof Brain: New Strategies to Improve Memory, Protect Immunity, and Fight Off Dementia, he examines why serious mental decline may not be an inevitable part of aging—and how individuals can boost short- and long-term brain health.
Mars is the most explored planet in our solar system besides Earth, and for good reason. Although its surface is cold and inhospitable, evidence from nearly 50 years of robotic exploration suggests that Mars was once much more Earth-like. Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist on the Perseverance rover mission and a mission scientist on the Curiosity rover mission, explains why Mars remains the best place in the solar system to look for signs of ancient life.
The history of Catholicism in America—and of America itself—cannot be told without the history of the Jesuits. David J. Collins, SJ, of Georgetown University offers a panoramic overview of the Jesuit order in the United States from the colonial era to the present and places it against the backdrop of American religious, cultural, and social history.
Washington, DC was built on American Indian land, but Indigenous peoples are often left out of the city’s narrative. Elizabeth Rule, an assistant professor at American University and Chickasaw scholar-activist, shines a light on the contributions of Indigenous tribal leaders and politicians, artists, and activists to the history of the District of Columbia.
England is by far the largest and most populous of the three nations that occupy the island of Britain, but how did its borders take their current shape, and why did Wales and Scotland maintain their distinctive national identities, despite eventually coming under English rule? Historian Jennifer Paxton recounts how Germanic settlers mixed with the existing Celtic-speaking population at the end of Roman rule in Britain, leading to the rise of several small kingdoms that coalesced into the entity that we know as England.
Join geologist Kirt Kempter as he explores the geology of Western National Parks over the course of 2023, with an in-depth look at one location every month. This program spotlights Yellowstone National Park as part of a summer series, focused on parks in California, Oregon, and Wyoming.
While Judy Garland was among the greatest live entertainers in show biz history and one of the top recording artists of her time, her appearances in front of the camera remain her legacy. Media historian Brian Rose examines her remarkable Hollywood career, which began in her young teens at MGM and continued with such timeless classics as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, and her stirring comeback in 1954’s A Star is Born.
When Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile married in 1469, they incorporated not only their two kingdoms but also independent Spanish dominions into a large, unified country that wielded political and religious power over much of Europe for years. Tudor scholar and historian Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger traces the history of this famous couple and their lasting impact on the thrones of several European nations.
Edward Hopper is widely regarded as one of the great American realists of modern art. His works capture a quintessential view of New York City that became part of our cultural fabric. Indeed, many noir films of the 1940s and 1950s reflect Hopper’s vision of city life reflected in his paintings: austere, silent, moody, and lonely. Art historian Bonita Billman explores the highlights of Hopper’s career and examines the sociopolitical and cultural contexts in which he lived and worked. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
During the American Revolutionary War, the British military made big promises to enslaved Americans. In return for taking up arms against the patriots, enslaved people won pledges from British commanders that they would be freed when Britain won the war. But what happened once Britain lost? Historian Richard Bell explores these Black fugitives’ extraordinary odyssey through the remainder of Britain’s global empire after 1783 to examine the ways they tried to pursue happiness and forge an African American diaspora.
For many American high school students, reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter from 1850 is a literary rite of passage, introducing them to the time’s moral codes and the Puritans’ notions of gender, sexuality, and religion. Joseph Luzzi, a professor of literature at Bard College, explores the nuances of Hawthorne’s language and style and the ways in which his vivid characters and their plights relate to concerns in the modern world.
Since ancient times, the Ganges has been embodied as the goddess Ganga, and her reach stretches well beyond the riverbanks. Art historian Robert DeCaroli traces the Ganges from its origins in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, exploring historic and sacred locations along the way. He also examines the art and architecture used to enhance and replicate access to Ganga’s sacred waters. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
The late 19th century in New York City was an era of exquisite mansions, beautiful parks and squares, and palatial public buildings—all magnificent markers of the Gilded Age and the wealth that made it possible. Yet the city was a study in dichotomies, an urban society whose facets were both celebrated and critiqued in the writings of Edith Wharton and Henry James and boldly exposed by Jacob Riis in his photographs of immigrant life. Lecturer George Scheper surveys the cultural panorama of New York and the contrasting realities of its inhabitants.
With September marking the start of Piedmont’s truffle season, it’s only fitting to explore the complementary wines of one of Italy's most famed regions—one that boasts more DOCGs than any other. Sommelier Erik Segelbaum spotlights the range of notable semi-alpine Piedmont wines and why they belong at almost any dinner table. This immersive program includes a curated personal tasting kit to enhance the experience.
The Myth of the Lost Cause, created by ex-Confederates as a social and cultural movement to define the Confederacy’s value and justify the just-concluded Civil War, remains part of contemporary America. Historian Stephen D. Engle challenges the enduring Southern reverence for the Confederacy as he examines issues central to the myth over generations by targeting its origins during Reconstruction, its cultural endurance through the 1920s and the Great Depression, its challenges to the Civil Rights era, and its symbolism in rallying patriotism today.
Many young readers list reading J.D. Salinger’s blockbuster novel, The Catcher in the Rye, as one of their most formative experiences with literature. Joseph Luzzi, a professor of literature at Bard College, revisits this epochal work to see how it has aged since its publication in 1951, highlighting the ways in which readers continue to see themselves reflected in the tormented character of its complex protagonist, Holden Caulfield.
Step from the bustling sidewalks of the Left Bank in Paris into a veritable treasure house: the Cluny Museum. The remains of ancient Roman baths and the Gothic Paris residence of the abbots of Cluny provide the fairy-tale backdrop for marvels of medieval art. Barbara Drake Boehm, a curator emerita of The Met Cloisters, explores the museum, renovated and reopened last year. The masterpieces inside include the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, sculpture from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame that was buried during the French Revolution, and a Jewish wedding ring hidden by its owner during the Black Death. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
