All upcoming programs

Economist Robbie Mochrie explains how economic thinking is indispensable to tackling huge problems such as avoiding climate catastrophe and pulling economies through the pandemic. Mochrie discusses how the greatest economic thinkers, including Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Esther Duflo, have enabled us to see the world differently and figure out how we can make it better. He shows that economic thinking emerged long before there were economists, and that good economics is about much more than the economy.

Though the story of the Wars of the Roses usually focuses on the Plantagenet men who fought, died on the battlefield, or survived to take the crown, some of its main personalities were queens, princesses, and duchesses. These remarkable women publicly and privately exerted the influence and wielded the power that shaped the conflict. Tudor and Renaissance scholar Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger introduces seven wives, mothers, and sisters who helped spin and shred the web of conspiracies that blanketed the English throne.

The domed U.S. Capitol has been rebuilt and enlarged many times under the direction of the person serving as Architect of the Capitol. Alan Hantman, who held the position from 1997 to 2007, shares insights into how the Capitol works as a physical space, who runs it, and how and why decisions are made about security. Hantman recounts memorable security threats, including the 1998 fatal shooting of two police officers and the evacuation of the Capitol on 9/11 as a hijacked airplane approached.

Discover landmarks, art, and other projects from the New Deal period with author David Taylor during a walking tour in Washington, D.C. Sites visited include Judiciary Square to see the public sculptures and dramatic courthouse bas reliefs there; the Henry F. Daly Building, constructed in the Classical Moderne style; the Federal Trade Commission Building, which features monumental Art Deco sculptures; and the National Mall and Washington Monument, both of which were renovated during the New Deal period.

Home to a vibrant theater scene, the Washington area offers opportunities for theater lovers to experience world-class productions, from grand-scale to intimate stages. Join local guide Lynn O’Connell for her second tour of the region’s theaters to explore five additional venues, meeting key players who make the magic happen.

Five days after the Declaration of Independence was finalized, a crowd of American soldiers and sailors tore down a statue of King George III raised by grateful New York colonists. Its precious lead became 42,088 musket balls to fire at the king’s army. Historian Richard Bell explores the tumultuous years between 1763 and 1776 and the extraordinary events that turned loyal British colonies into a united confederation willing to go to war to achieve independence.

One of America's most innovative architects, Frank Lloyd Wright experimented with new ways to design homes and integrate them into nature. Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob, and the houses at Polymath Park offer prime examples of his organic architecture. Visit all three locations on an overnight tour to the scenic Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania with tour leader Bill Keene, a lecturer on architecture, urban history, and city planning. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

Learn the science and magic of how bright magenta pokeweed, dark black walnut, vibrant orange cosmos, and even urban detritus can become ingredients for your palette in the form of beautiful inks. Before the workshop, you receive a guide from workshop leader Jason Logan to take along as you go on a foraging walk to search for ink materials. Then get hands-on in the studio to transform what you gathered into rich, colorful inks, creating place-based art materials that celebrate the stories of where they were found.

Art, craft, science, ecology, and magic combine in this hands-on inky workshop with Jason Logan, founder of the Toronto Ink Company and author of How To Be a Color Wizard: Forage and Experiment with Natural Art Making. A few simple ingredients and permission to play offer color wizards ages 8 to 12 and their adult assistants a new window into the prismatic world around us. Young wizards, who must be accompanied by an adult, learn what paint and ink are made of and how to create a rainbow of colors and textures from beets.

The influential 19th century intellectual Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science who visited the United States in 1804 to meet President Thomas Jefferson, whose writings Humboldt had taken to heart. Smithsonian American Art Museum curator Eleanor Jones Harvey, author of Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature and Culture, illuminates Humboldt's efforts to influence American cultural values through the visual arts, sciences, literature, and politics.