Programs

Few American cities are as deeply entwined with the birth of the nation as Boston. From village greens where militias first mustered to crowded wharves and meetinghouses alive with revolutionary debate, trace the dramatic opening chapters of the American Revolution. Guided by historian Fred Zilian on this 4-day tour, explore the landscapes, landmarks, and ideas that transformed a cluster of colonial towns into the epicenter of a struggle for independence.

Sammy Davis Jr. was a prodigy in vaudeville, trailblazer in desegregating Las Vegas, and global superstar who shone in Hollywood and on Broadway. Performer and educator Aaron Reeder examines how Davis’s artistry intersected with questions of race, religion, and identity in 20th-century America and the contradictions of fame that defined his career. Reeder explores Davis’ life and legacy through rare recordings, archival images, and performance excerpts.

Loyalists, Americans from all social backgrounds who opposed independence and supported Britain, lost nearly everything after the Revolution. Historian Richard Bell reexamines their experiences, challenging stereotypes that cast them as wealthy, cowardly elites. Using their experiences as examples, Bell examines why these men and women chose to remain loyal to Britain, what their experience of the Revolution was like, and how their lives changed once the patriots won the war.

Jazz crosses lines of race, class, geography, politics, religion, and genre. In this three-part lecture series, explore the origins and proliferation of jazz, from its beginnings in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Kansas City to its most recent appearances in Europe and Asia. Musicology professor Anna Harwell Celenza shares recordings of blues, Dixieland, swing, bebop, cool jazz, and fusion to reveal what makes jazz vital to America’s multifaceted identity as she demonstrates how jazz has never stopped changing.

Georgia O’Keeffe, a pioneering American modernist, became renowned for her bold paintings of flowers, bones, New York skyscrapers, and the New Mexico desert. Her partnership with photographer Alfred Stieglitz helped shape her artistic identity and public recognition. Art historian Joseph Paul Cassar follows her path from early training to her breakthrough at Gallery 291, her Lake George period, travels to Palo Duro Canyon and Hawaii, and her final move to New Mexico, offering a critical study of her major works and legacy. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

For more than 140 million years, dinosaurs were among the dominant land animals on Earth. Thousands of species lived and died across all climates and environments and on every landmass. The National Museum of Natural History’s curator of Dinosauria, paleontologist Matthew Carrano, explores what life was like for dinosaurs in these ecosystems as he discusses what scientists know, don’t know, and hope to learn about the ecology of dinosaurs.

Once the thriving capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, Samarra in the 9th century served as the center of an Islamic empire that stretched from northern Africa to Central Asia. Its striking spiral minaret serves as an enduring reminder of the Great Mosque that once enclosed this sacred ground along the banks of the Tigris River. Historian Justin M. Jacobs focuses on Samarra’s rare preservation of Islamic art, architecture, and city plans from the heyday of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Costume design shapes character and story by using clothing to signal background, personality, status, and emotional tone while grounding a film’s time and place. In Hollywood’s studio era, vast wardrobe departments created glamorous, idealized looks that often influenced real-world fashion. As independent cinema grew, looks shifted toward realistic, character-driven choices. Working closely with actors and drawing on custom pieces or existing garments, designers help performers inhabit their roles, a process Nancy Friedland of Columbia University traces through American film history.

The first decade of American TV comedy—from the late 1940s to the late 1950s—produced a remarkable range of live comedy and variety shows, filmed sitcoms, and late-night talk programs. Pioneering performers and creators such as Sid Caesar, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, and Steve Allen helped shape a new visual language of comedy that influenced television for the next 60 years. As he shares dozens of clips, media historian Brian Rose examines why this era may have produced more laughter than any other period in television history.

In a fascinating four-part series, curators and historians from the National Air and Space Museum trace the history of flight, from humanity’s early aspirations for aerial transit, to 12 breathtaking seconds at Kitty Hawk, to the advances that came with global combat, and how jet engines and digital technology are opening a new future for aviation. This session focuses on commercial aviation.