Popular Culture Programs

No television show was more aptly named than Bob Ross’s long-running “Joy of Painting.” Join curator Eric Jentsch of the American History Museum and Sarah Strohl of Bob Ross, Inc., as they examine the artist’s continuing legacy. This program includes a morning painting class to bring home a distinctive Ross-style landscape of your own as well as a lunch break.

No television show was more aptly named than Bob Ross’s long-running “Joy of Painting.” Join curator Eric Jentsch of the American History Museum and Sarah Strohl of Bob Ross, Inc., as they examine the artist’s continuing legacy. This program includes a mid-afternoon painting class to bring home a distinctive Ross-style landscape of your own.

Fifty years ago, the Beatles made their final album together, a farewell project that was their most innovative collection of songs. Beatles historian Kenneth Womack draws on rare clips and videos to show how the group and producer George Martin created Abbey Road’s unique sounds.

Deb Amlen, the New York Times' crossword columnist and senior editor of “Wordplay,” presents an insider's look at how the crossword evolved through history, how you can get started as a puzzle solver or improve your skills, and ways to eventually crack the code behind even the trickiest of clues.

Kathy Reichs is known for her crime-fiction novels chronicling the adventures of Temperance (Bones) Brennan, a forensic anthropologist at the fictional Jeffersonian Institute. Join her as she uncovers the challenges of translating real-life drama into the stuff of fiction, discusses her dual careers, and shares stories behind her newest novel, A Conspiracy of Bones.

The clandestine nature of the CIA’s southern Nevada flight-test site for the development of up-to-the-minute reconnaissance craft was essential to its work in the 1950s. CIA historian Brent Geary tells the story behind the mythology of Area 51, including how some of the Air Force’s official cover stories deliberately fed one of the period’s hottest conspiracy theories: the existence of alien life.

How can a society awash in misinformation combat the powerful impact of fake news? Helen Lee Bouygues, president of the Reboot Foundation, offers some practical strategies that news consumers can use to fight back, and examines the prevalence of fake news within the context of broader problems in public discourse today.

Ellen Gorman of Georgetown University offers a survey of the American art market from the 1950s to the present, introducing the cast of players and corporate entities behind the transformation of artworks into commodities for sale to the highest bidder. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)