All upcoming Biography & Autobiography programs

Since its opening in 2002, the kitchen from Julia Child’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been a top destination for visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where it is on display. Drawing from her new book, Julia Child’s Kitchen, Paula Johnson, one of the original collectors and keepers of the iconic space, offers an intimate portrait of Child at home, recalls what it’s like to cook beside her, and reveals how this kitchen has influenced the ways we cook today.

Art superstars Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Frida Kahlo didn’t evolve within a vacuum. They descended from centuries of celebrated women artists—as well as those whose names were lost. Art historian Nancy G. Heller traces the history of European and American women artists from the late 16th century to 1950, addressing the socioeconomic, political, and aesthetic significance of their work and placing their lives and art within the context of their male contemporaries. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)

Throughout his six-decade career, the enigmatic, supremely sophisticated, and dazzlingly Noël Coward (aka “The Master”) achieved wild success in every creative area he touched: composing, writing, directing, acting, cabaret performance, and even painting. Pianist and popular speaker Rachel Franklin leads a joyful excursion through some fabulous Cowardly classics including his play Blithe Spirit, songs such as “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” and movies such as In Which We Serve and The Italian Job.

Over his long and continuing career, British artist David Hockney’s style and subject matter have mostly remained consistent and recognizable. But he has demonstrated an amazing range and willingness to experiment with media. Art critic and adviser Judy Pomeranz offers a lavish exploration of Hockney’s remarkable career as a painter, draftsman, printmaker, photographer, designer of stage sets and costumes, and creator of works in digital media. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Frederic Church, America’s preeminent landscape artist of the 19th century, spent 40 years creating Olana in Hudson, New York, a 250-acre designed landscape in which his family residence and farm were sited and whose panoramic views of the Hudson River Valley and Catskills are integral elements. Carolyn Keogh, director of education and public programs at the Olana Partnership, leads a detailed exploration of the life, career, and inspirations that motivated Church to create this masterwork. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

While the “New Hollywood” filmmakers of the early 1970s shook up the studio system with pessimistic counterculture films, the nostalgic director Peter Bogdanovich emulated studio productions and legendary Hollywood directors of a bygone era. When his smash hits The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon were followed by a string of critical and commercial failures, journalists and industry rivals went into destructive overdrive to cut the boy wonder down to size. Film historian Max Alvarez argues against Bogdanovich’s so-called decline after Paper Moon and presents bountiful evidence of the stylistic and narrative skill reflected throughout the career of this outstanding filmmaker.

We think we know the Vikings well. These pagan conquerors from Scandinavia are everywhere in our popular culture: movies, TV shows, video games, and even Super Bowl commercials. But which parts of the Vikings that we know and love (or love to hate) are real, and which are based in fantasy? Medievalist Paul B. Sturtevant unpacks the differences between the fantasies and the medieval realities of the Viking world, investigating where the myths come from and why they persist.

Less famous than their Tudor cousins, the Stuart monarchs survived a plot to blow up the government and the only governmental execution of an anointed king in English history to restructure the nature of the monarchy and eventually join England and Scotland into a new nation. Historian Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger examines how four generations of Stuart monarchs—from James I to Queen Anne—led the country from the personal monarchy of the Tudors into the constitutional monarchy and the establishment of Great Britain.

Jackson Pollock revolutionized modern art with his pioneering style of Action Painting, creating expansive, nonfigurative webs of color that earned him the nickname "Jack the Dripper” and left an indelible mark on the art world. Art historian Janetta Rebold Benton delves into Pollock's life and enduring influence, exploring how he and his contemporaries challenged artistic conventions to open new avenues for abstraction and creative expression that continue to resonate in contemporary art. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

The principal architect of the party system and one of the founders of the Democratic Party, Martin Van Buren’s unparalleled skills as a political strategist won him the nickname “The Little Magician"—and a series of increasingly high-profile offices. Van Buren scholar James M. Bradley depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War as he charts the eighth president’s ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the White House.