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When Octavian received the title Augustus from the Roman Senate in 27 B.C.E., he inaugurated a new political order known as the Principate. The shift marked the beginning of an era defined by stability, cultural renewal, and the calculated use of imagery to legitimize imperial rule. Art historian Renee Gondek discusses how art and architecture shaped and communicated the emerging identity of the Augustan era. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
In-person Family Program: Go on an interactive exploration of the Natural History Museum and participate in hands-on crafts projects and games. Then roll out your sleeping bag and dream away in the darkened halls of one of the world’s most famous museums! Geared for children ages 8 to 14 years old, accompanied by an adult.
Much like a musical composition follows a specific key, this watercolor-based workshop—also adaptable to oil and pastel—aims to simplify the painting process using color harmony.
Art historian Roland Betancourt illuminates the central role of images in Byzantine culture, focusing on how basic questions about images and their power in the medieval world can inform the ways in which images are thought about today. Covering the crucial years of the Byzantine Empire (roughly 330–1453), Betancourt looks at the art, architecture, and theories of visual culture in the medieval lands of the eastern Mediterranean and in modern-day Türkiye, Greece, Syria, and Russia. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)
In August 1943, at the height of World War II, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt traveled more than 25,000 miles throughout the Pacific Theater, visiting military bases, hospitals, and remote outposts where American troops were stationed. Author Shannon McKenna Schmidt chronicles the first lady’s extraordinary five-week journey as she flew in unheated transport planes and bombers, dined in mess halls, and even trekked through the jungle on a simulated training mission. Schmidt also traces Roosevelt’s transformation from a shy society matron into one of the most consequential first ladies in American history.
Hindus have long wished to see their deities in visible form, and artists have met this desire through sculptures and paintings. In modern India, this desire has also been met by colorful mass-produced “God-prints,” often called calendar prints or bazaar art. Richard Davis, professor emeritus of religion, outlines the history of this genre of commercial religious art, from its origins in colonial Kolkata and Maharashtra through its proliferation in independent India. (World Art History Certificate elective, ½ credit)
Travel the world with the summer edition of Sketching the Smithsonian as you take an artful break and explore the fascinating, vast collections of this extraordinary museum.
Marking the 150th anniversary of pivotal 20th-century Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s birth, speaker and concert pianist Rachel Franklin combines an illustrated lecture with live piano demonstrations to examine how de Falla forged his unique, seductive voice with such enchanting stage and concert pieces as El amor brujo, La vida breve, and Noches en los jardines de España.
Mycenaean civilization has long resisted simple interpretation—neither purely the start of Greek culture nor an alien precursor. Classicist and archaeologist Dimitri Nakassis argues that archaeological and textual evidence reveals a diverse, evolving world spanning 1650–1100 B.C.E. across the Aegean and Ionian regions and reveals a complex Late Bronze Age society that defies neat categorization.
Before skyscrapers and industry reshaped the eastern United States, the region teemed with wildlife—elk, bison, wolves, and cougars. Environmental writer Andrew Moore traces this lost landscape and the rapid decline that followed as industrialization and unregulated hunting devastated native species. He follows conservationists and communities restoring these animals—from bison in Illinois to elk in Kentucky and red wolves in North Carolina—and explores what their return means for conservation and coexistence today.
