All upcoming Popular Culture 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.

Film historian Max Alvarez leads a perfect pre-Halloween evening: a nerve-shattering romp through the history of “creature features” spotlighting the screen’s most memorable monsters, mummies, werewolves, oversized insects, outer-space invaders, and aquatic predators—and the behind-the-scenes masterminds who brought them to life from the 1930s to today. It’s a guaranteed treat for fans of the Monsterverse.

Over the past half century, dwarves, hobbits, magic, dragons, runes, and other staples of fantastic realms have become entrenched in popular culture, from The Lord of the Rings to the Harry Potter series. There are substantive historical inspirations behind these phenomena. Historian Justin M. Jacobs discusses the evolving conceptions of fantastic elements in Eurasian history and lays bare the truth behind what he sees as four distorted myths of fantasy in our culture in this fall series. This session focuses on medieval bestiaries.

The stamp of prolific chef, author, and TV personality Bobby Flay can be felt in restaurants across the country, as well as at the dinner table in many families’ homes. Join him, in conversation with Washington Post’s Joe Yonan, as he discusses his newest cookbook, Bobby Flay: Chapter One, shares insights into his personal and professional experiences and offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the culinary world that shaped him.

Have you ever wondered why scores of British words and phrases—such as one-off, kerfuffle, easy peasy, and cheeky—have been enthusiastically taken up in the United States? Drawing from his new book, Gobsmacked!: The British Invasion of American English, writer Ben Yagoda takes a deep dive into the most popular British terms in the United States today as he explores why Americans have embraced British insults and curses, sports terms, and words about food and drinks.

After teenagers responded with wild enthusiasm to hearing “Rock Around the Clock” in Blackboard Jungle in 1955, Hollywood began to recognize the power of the teen audience. A flood of films featuring musicians performing rock and R&B hits and plots about rebellious high schoolers, daredevil hot-rodders, and antics-prone college students followed. Media historian Brian Rose looks at rock movies’ first decade and how Hollywood benefited from the power of the music and its target audience.

Many film scholars argue that the 1970s were the greatest decade of film, focusing on the mavericks of “New Hollywood” such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. But Washington City Paper film critic Noah Gittell argues that this handful of filmmakers represents an incomplete snapshot of the era and looks beyond them to find a decade of dazzling variety that included Hal Ashby, Elaine May, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, and Gordon Parks.

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.

Since the height of the pandemic, Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi and her followers have been gathering on social media and getting busy in the kitchen. The recipes from these sessions are featured in a new book, Bake Club: 101 Must-Have Moves for Your Kitchen. Join her, in conversation with chef and cookbook author Pati Jinich, as she discusses what Bake Club means to her and shares recipes from her newest cookbook and a few baking tips along the way.

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.