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Step back in time to the land of the pharaohs and take a journey through two of New York’s most prestigious cultural institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Each museum offers a distinct, captivating lens into the world of ancient Egypt. Biblical scholar and historian Gary Rendsburg leads this exploration of ancient Egyptian culture that includes papyri, artifacts, and even an entire temple.
From naming hurricanes to throwing birthday parties for dogs, the tendency to see human traits in animals, objects, and natural forces is a cognitive impulse known as anthropomorphism. Science writer Justin Gregg delves into the science and psychology behind this universal phenomenon and unravels the reasons behind why people treat pets like babies, fall in love with chatbots, and talk to cars.
Drawing on vivid photographs and her knowledge of Rock Creek Park through the seasons, author and naturalist Melanie Choukas-Bradley introduces the story and natural history of a national park landscape as old as Yosemite. Learn about the Indigenous peoples who hunted, fished, and quarried on the land; the presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, who enjoyed recreation here; and the flora and fauna that find a wild refuge in their urban surroundings.
Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s Writing Salon, leads three online workshops that explore essential elements of writing and styles through close looking, word-sketching, and imaginative response to prompts. The sessions spotlight a wide range of visual art chosen to inspire writers of all experience levels to deepen their process and practice. This writing session is inspired by 19th-century American artist William Michael Harnett's The Old Violin.
Choral music is a glorious genre in which the sound of a multitude of voices embraces an audience. Opera and classical music expert Saul Lilienstein leads an in-depth series that considers the great choral works and the composers who wrote them from the Renaissance through the Romantic century. Emphasis is placed on enduring and beloved masterpieces, focusing on compositional technique, polyphonic nature, influences among composers, and the relationship between the secular and the sacred.
The merchants, explorers, pilgrims, and refugees who traveled the often-treacherous trade routes of Asia from the second century B.C.E. through the 15th century brought treasured commodities and new ideas with them. Crossing massive mountain ranges, unforgiving deserts, and dangerous open seas, these routes could be a source of untold riches or of disaster. Robert DeCaroli, professor of art history at George Mason University, focuses on the ways Asian societies participated in, benefited from, and were changed by trade and travel. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)
Contemporary Indigenous artists produce both 21st-century variations on age-old creative traditions as well as highly experimental paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, installations, and performance pieces. Art historian Nancy G. Heller surveys the most significant work by contemporary Native artists from the U.S. and Canada, placing it in a broader socio-political context and celebrating the accomplishments of North American Indian artists. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
As fans celebrate Jane Austen's 250th birthday and await the next season of “Bridgerton,” the Regency era is more popular than ever. But much of what readers and viewers know about the period comes from historical fiction. Historian Julie Taddeo explores the real world of Regency elites, known as the Ton, and the larger British culture of which they were part.
Despite scientific advancements and sophisticated forecasting tools, the local weather that impacts people’s daily lives continues to remain a mystery to many. Gain a better understanding of what weather is and how it works with meteorologist Edward Graham, an atmospheric scientist based at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, as he surveys the science behind the operation of Earth's weather and climate systems and how millions of weather observations are gathered to make the forecast for tomorrow.
People of the late 19th century had great hopes that technological innovation 100 years into the future would change human life for the better. Artists of the period offered their visions of this new world—including robot barbers and manicurists, jet-pack-propelled tennis, and a Victorian-era version of Zoom—in colorful illustrations for collector’s cards, postcards, and cartoons. Writer Adam Tanner looks at these depictions to reveal how some futurists were hilariously off-base, while others uncannily predicted the world of today.
