Atlantic staff writer Ed Yong has spoken with more than 100 experts since the early stages of the pandemic. “I’ve learned that almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable,” Yong writes. “The COVID‐19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society: its shortsighted leadership, its disregard for expertise, its racial inequities, its social-media culture, and its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism.” In August, Yong sat down with The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, for a conversation about how the U.S. botched its response to the pandemic, and how we can prevent future health crises. This is an important conversation with a writer who has contributed greatly to our collective understanding of COVID-19 and its repercussions.

Crowned the ‘Egg Master of Sydney’ and ‘creator of avocado toast’, Bill Granger is renowned as the restauranteur who brought laid-back Australian cafe culture to the world, and is beloved by family cooks and culinary sophisticates alike. The empire that is ‘bills’ began with the original Darlinghurst street-corner cafe 26 years ago and is credited as the first place anywhere to put the now-iconic breakfast of avocado toast on the menu. Since then, from Sydney to Tokyo, London to Seoul, people around the world have queued for a taste of his absurdly fluffy ricotta hotcakes and creamy scrambled eggs, and fallen in love with this sunny, relaxed, and very Australian way of eating. Ahead of his new book release, Australian Food, Bill Granger talks with food writer Adam Liaw to celebrate the global phenomenon of Australian cafe culture, the evolution of a national cuisine and the uniqueness of Australian food. Recorded live in July, 2020 from the Sydney Opera House.

In her latest short story collection The (Other) You Joyce Carol Oates ponders who her characters might have become if they’d chosen different paths. Through the imaginations of her contemplative protagonists, Oates—author of contemporary classic novels like We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde—deftly detangles the complex circumstances that dictate who we turn out to be. Join Oates and Rebecca Makkai, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Great Believers, for a discussion of destiny, alternative realities, and our other selves from March, 2021.

As part of "In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities," a virtual conference exploring the critical intersection between the humanities and artificial intelligence, gather with us for a panel discussion featuring: Marsha Gordon, Professor of Film Studies, North Carolina State University; Wesley Hogan, Director, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; and Natalie Bullock Brown, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, North Carolina State University.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin. Gather with us for Facing Change, our new online speaker series. Every other month, the Barnes is bringing together artists, scholars, and community activists virtually for a multicultural and intergenerational conversation about race in America. Today’s conversation focuses on the term “white-adjacent,” which describes a person who is part of a minority group but has access to, utilizes, or benefits from white privilege. The panel features writer Anne Ishii, filmmaker Rey Miranda, and musician Mel Hsu, with producer Loraine Ballard Morrill as moderator. During the program, you’ll be encouraged to use the chat function to submit your own questions.

Julianne Moore is an Academy Award and Emmy winning actor, and the first American woman to be awarded top acting prizes at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice film festivals. Julianne also is a New York Times bestselling author, for her children’s book series Freckleface Strawberry. She is on the Advisory Council of The Children's Health Fund, a supporter of the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, and in 2015, became founding chair of the Everytown for Gun Safety Creative Council, a creative community established to help amplify the movement to end gun violence in America. Julianne has most recently starred in Gloria Bell (2019), After The Wedding (2019) and The Glorias (2020). Future projects include the Apple+ series Lisey’s Story (2021), Spirit Untamed (2021), Women In The Window (2021), Dear Evan Hanson (2021) and When You Finish Saving the World. In these online events, Gregory Crewdson, Director of Graduate Studies in Photography, asks each guest a list of simple questions about artistic practice, and the anticipation of an end to the pandemic crisis.

The Model Minority Myth, Anti-Asian Racism, Anti-Black Racism, and COVID-19 with Jennifer Ho, Director of the Center for Humanities & the Arts and Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Louis Menand presents his definitive new intellectual and cultural history of the United States in the post-WWII era. Twenty years ago in The Metaphysical Club, Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar and critic Louis Menand explored American intellectual and cultural history in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In The Free World, he returns to those questions about what defined and shaped American culture—economically, politically, artistically, and personally—later on, during the Cold War. Taking readers inside such moments and places as Hannah Arendt’s Manhattan, the Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merce Cunningham and John Cage’s residencies at Black Mountain College, and Elvis Presley’s early career at Sun Studios in Memphis, Menand shows how changing economic, technological, and social forces impacted the world of ideas as much as they did the contest for power. Louis Menand researched and wrote The Free World during his 2007–2008 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He discusses his book with New York Times critic A.O. Scott.

Improv will bring play and laughter into your life during these times of uncertainty! Play helps us stay connected and laughter is the shortest distance between two people! This class is designed to introduce you to the thrills and chills of Improv and to develop your acting and narrative skills to boot...all from the comfort of your own home. Tap into your sense of joy, connection, and creativity all while learning how to take your improv acting from the stage to the screen.

“Inheritance” is The Atlantic’s new project about American history, Black life, and the resilience of memory. In a live virtual event, The Atlantic will gather leading writers to discuss how Black history has been buried—and what unearthing it will look like. The event will feature the Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, staff writer Adam Harris, senior editor Vann R. Newkirk II, contributing writer Anna Deavere Smith, and managing editor Gillian White, as well as the author and Harvard professor Danielle Allen and the poet Joy Priest.

This is the first book in the Transylvanian Trilogy series by author and CALA instructor Roberta Seret. This historical novel Introduces Mica at seventeen-years-old, when her parents are plotting to bring down Ceausescu as he comes to power. They are arrested and she realizes she will be next. In the middle of the night, she escapes Transylvania on her bicycle. But she is not alone - she has taken her father's colored diamonds that were hidden in their basement. Her only fear is that she remembers he had told her, they come from Auschwitz and they may be cursed. The Gift of Diamonds reveals hidden secrets of how Fascism led to Communism which began the seeds of modern-day Terrorism. Free with advance registration, participants will be sent a Zoom link in advance to join the discussion.

In 1982, anti–Asian American sentiment simmered, especially in Detroit, where U.S. autoworkers believed Japanese car companies were costing them their jobs. A bar fight turned fatal, leaving a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, beaten to death at the hands of two White men. With From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry, Paula Yoo examines the killing and the trial. When the killers received a $3,000 fine and probation, the community outrage led to a federal civil rights trial―the first involving a crime against an Asian American―and galvanized what came to be known as the Asian American movement.

Our Virtual Author Series continues with Erik Sherman, whose new book, Two Sides of Glory, portrays the losing side of the 1986 World Series.After telling the New York Mets’ side of the story in a previous book, Erik turns to the Boston Red Sox’ version of the story, with recollections from players that are both insightful and emotional. With the benefit of years of reflection from the men who made up the ’86 Sox, the book examines the perspective of a talented team that came up just short in its quest to end a long World Series drought. Thanks to the support from The Ford Motor Company, this program is free of charge but registration is required.

Escape to the beach as we take a dive into the life of rock pools. Join Research Fellow Lauren Sumner-Rooney to meet some familiar – and not so familiar – faces from beneath the waves. We’ll take a whistle-stop rock pool safari before settling in to draw some of their most interesting inhabitants, using the Museum’s specimens as inspiration in this online, interactive science and art workshop. Lauren Sumner-Rooney is a Museum Research Fellow working on the function and evolution of animal eyes. Her current research focusses on the visual systems of spiders, but she has a broader background in invertebrate zoology and particularly marine molluscs and echinoderms. Lauren is also a lecturer in biological sciences at Keble College and teaches undergraduate zoology and evolutionary biology. (Note, live from Oxford, this program begins at 12pm US Pacific Time).

Each particle in the air we breathe has a history. The chemical composition of those particles provides clues to the sources and the potential impacts of those particles on human health and the climate system. Join this lecture with Dr. Peter DeCarlo to explore particle composition in indoor and outdoor spaces to better understand what is in the air we breathe. Dr. Peter DeCarlo is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering. Dr. DeCarlo has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science, and a BS in Biochemistry. He uses state-of-the-art instrumentation to measure the chemical composition of particulates and gases in indoors, outdoors, and in the laboratory to better understand the intersection between energy, air quality, health, and climate impacts of human emissions. He has made air quality and climate related measurements from planes, trucks, and stationary sites all over the world to better understand direct emissions, sources, and subsequent chemical reactions of pollutants in the atmosphere.

Join us for a conversation with Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, Evan Spiegel, CEO and Co-Founder of Snap Inc., Elizabeth Alexander, President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles, as they discuss the future of monuments with an eye toward the ways in which artists can create bold and interactive virtual memorials. The conversation will be moderated by Naima J. Keith, Vice President of Education and Public Programs at LACMA.

Join us for an Online Lunch Conversation in French (for Beginners)! On Tuesdays, every month. Enjoy the lunch break to have your first conversations in French! Each month, we encourage you to talk on different subjects to practice your spoken skills. A screen shouldn’t keep us from chatting and sharing a lunch together! The Lunch Conversation is lead by our French teacher, Coline.

Expand your knowledge of art history through introductions to core themes and close examination of The Met collection. In this session, explore how portraits communicate power, status, dynasty, achievement, and emotion across time and geography, from the Italian Renaissance to the contemporary United States. Learn how artists from Bronzino to Richard Avedon have used various media to represent complex individuals—and themselves. Please note: This live event takes place on Zoom. Space is limited; advance registration is required. Registration closes April 19, 2021, or when registration is full.

Please join the Northwestern Prison Education Program for a roundtable in our Transforming Criminal Justice series, a second event focused on the death penalty. We'll be joined by: Meredith M. Rountree, Senior Lecturer, Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University; Rob Owen, Capital Defense Attorney; and Renaldo Hudson, Education Director for the Illinois Prison Project.

Join Smithsonian and other writers for a virtual, creative writing hour at the National Portrait Gallery! Our goal is to create a virtual space where writers can create, connect, and draw inspiration from the Portrait Gallery's online exhibitions on Google Arts and Culture. We will provide writing prompts, and you are also welcome to bring your own writing project-in-progress. We will write for about 30 minutes and end each session with a brief discussion or reading.

This class is specifically designed for seniors who love fitness and ballet. Classes will offer the benefits of a classical ballet technique class with gentle modifications to honor well-lived backs, hips, knees, and ankles. Once a month, a San Francisco Ballet Audience Engagement Program Expert will “zoom in” with a short in-class experience encompassing dance history, repertory analysis, and other opportunities to learn about the World of Dance and SF Ballet.

Join us for an online drawing program that centers mindfulness and community. Each session begins with short drawing warm-ups, followed by a close look at a work of art for inspiration and open-ended art-making prompts. Drawing Together provides a space to make and share in the company of others, welcoming everyone with an interest in cultivating their creativity. No art background is required. Instructions for joining through Zoom, as well as the prompts and works of art, will be provided in an email to registered participants 1–2 days in advance. Space limited, so sign-up soon!

This series of online talks by the Whitney’s Joan Tisch Teaching Fellows highlights works in the Museum's collection and recent exhibitions to illuminate critical topics in American art from 1900 to the present. During each thirty-minute session, participants are invited to comment and ask questions through a moderated chat. Sessions are available live only, Tuesdays at 6 pm and Thursdays at 12 pm, but topics and speakers do periodically repeat. Check back here for more sessions added regularly. Art exists in relation to its particular social moment. Whether representing the current reality or leveraging its power to challenge cultural narratives, it can inspire emotional responses and critical thinking in a way distinct from traditional political methods. Through work in the Whitney’s collection, we will explore the different roles art has played in the United States during the twentieth century, addressing issues from immigration to economic justice to sexism and racism.

Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, and Fabrizio Gallanti, director of Arc en rêve centre d’architecture in Bordeaux, will explore the idea of “city” through this tour of Bordeaux’s past and present. For centuries, Bordeaux has been a city where architecture and urban planning have reinvented how citizens live together. A UNESCO World Heritage site, its majestic neoclassical buildings, airy squares, marvelous garden make Bordeaux one of the most famous European cities for its architecture. More recently this legacy can be seen in the reclamation and redevelopment of industrial neighborhoods along the Garonne River bank. While Rem Koolhaas’s OMA firm is collaborating on a state-of-the-art transportation and urban housing masterplan, the city is more and more addressing issues of climate change and spatial equality.

This class focuses on the basics of drawing with pencil, eraser, and paper. Expert teachers guide students through the elements of art, including line, shape, shadow, value, tone, form and perspective, demonstrating and offering critiques of work. This course is ideal for beginner and intermediate-level students who seek a foundation in the fundamentals of drawing.

Join The New Republic live for a panel discussion on how to reclaim the social democratic roots of liberal politics with Wendy Brown—professor, political theorist; Samuel Moyn—professor, law and history; Osita Nwanevu—TNR staff writer; and Moderator: Jason Linkins—TNR editor.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture has brought together a group of artists who will discuss the impact of the twin pandemics of COVID 19 and Racial Unrest on their craft. Facilitated by Michel Martin, host of NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered, artists Raymond O. Caldwell, Producing Artistic Director of the Theater Alliance; Photojournalist Tony Mobley; Ebony Toliver, Comedian, Producer and Founder of LikeDat Productions; and Robert Battle, Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will discuss how they have risen to the challenge of shuttered performance spaces and how they have used their art to uplift diverse voices, to bring solace, and to spark discussion about current issues

As carbon-storing and carbon-cycling juggernauts, forests are a major tipping point for whether our planet can keep climate change at bay. On April 20, join three Smithsonian forest scientists for a special pre-Earth Day panel. Discover how trees store and move carbon, from the level of microscopic cells to the sweeping canopies of America's woodlands. The panelists will share decades of knowledge from the forests of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland. They'll also reveal discoveries on how forests around the world are responding to climate change, through work with the Smithsonian’s Forest Global Earth Observatory. This live conversation will include plenty of time for audience Q&A. The panel will be recorded! By signing up online, you'll be able to join live and you will automatically receive a link to the closed-captioned recording via email as soon as it's ready.

This workshop-based class is designed for writers currently working on novels and ready to revise portions of their manuscripts. In our first session, students will share a bit about their works-in-progress and where they are in the writing process. We will also outline the rules for our workshop and discuss how best to give—and receive—helpful, constructive feedback. After that, our class time will be devoted to workshopping chapter-length sections from students’ novels, focusing on ways to deepen character depictions and motivations, hone narrative voice, and craft a compelling arc on a scene-by-scene basis. To supplement our workshop, we will also read and discuss excerpts from published novels to deepen our understanding of how great writers across genres use elements of craft and story to create gripping narratives and unforgettable characters. By the end of the course, each student will have the opportunity to receive feedback on at least two novel excerpts from their classmates and instructor. While this class does not have specific course requirements, it may be best suited for students who have taken Emily’s Intro to Novel-Writing class or another multi-week novel course. This class will meet on Zoom. Registered students, please contact the instructor directly for Zoom details. Emily Holleman is the author of Cleopatra’s Shadows and The Drowning King (both Little Brown & Company), the first of which was long-listed for the HWA Debut Crown. She is currently working on a speculative novel set in California of the not-so-distant future. Her nonfiction has appeared in Elle, LitHub, Salon, and BookPage, among others.

Marine Biologist Matt Savoca has long had a passion for the natural world, seen somehow by him first from his home in New York City. He has also been deeply involved in ocean outreach, being a finalist in 2016 in the UC Grad Slam competition and in 2017 giving a TEDx-talk on marine plastic pollution. Over the years, he had captivated audiences at state parks, museums, aquariums, and elementary schools. He’ll tell us about his current work on whale diets. The world’s biggest animals have the world’s biggest appetites but how much they eat and how they do it has been a mystery. Using new data from high resolution smart tags, drone video, and active prey mapping with sonar, he finds that prior estimates of food consumption have been systematically underestimated. One reason this is important is because whales are ecosystem engineers, eating vast quantities of food in one place and then excreting waste products back out as ocean fertilizer in a different part of the water column. Join him (virtually) for a talk about whale behavior, bounty and bowels, and the surprising ecosystem services provided by whales. Attendance is free, but you must register in advance.

In this eighth episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and President Paul Kagame discuss the African Union, security in the Great Lakes region, and the future of U.S. diplomatic and economic relations with Rwanda and Africa, the world’s youngest continent in which 50% of the population is under 25 years old. Paul Kagame is President of the Republic of Rwanda. In 2019 he was elected Chairperson of the East African Community, and has been leading the institutional reform of the African Union (AU) since 2016. President Kagame is currently Chairperson of the AU Development Agency New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) as well as African Union Leader for Domestic Health Financing. H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.

In our new live demo series, Bring the Heat, join us for a live stream of glass artists demonstrating their expertise and skillful execution while “in the zone.” During each demo, an artist will present a personal design they’ve worked to perfect, and they will be live on the mic to narrate as they work—a rarity for live artist demonstrations and a first at the Museum. In working with glass, Katie Hubbs has found both a venue for endless exploration and a seemingly perpetual ability to transform, much like many natural environments and those who live within them.

Award-winning writer and Cambridge scholar Robert Macfarlane will engage in a conversation with Professor Nathan Hensley about his work on nature, place, landscape, travel, people and language, with a nod to the authors who influenced his writing. From his first book Mountains of the Mind (2003; The Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award) to The Old Ways (2012), Landmarks (2015), The Lost Words (2017) and Underland (2019), Robert Macfarlane has fostered a new critical and popular interest in the environment and ecology. He has also explored those themes through essays—as the 2005 Common Ground series in The Guardian–and reportage (in Granta and Archipelago). Macfarlane collaborated with cinematographer Renan Ozturk, director Jen Peedom, and composer Richard Tognetti for the production of the film Mountain (2017) which won three Australian Academy Awards. Together with Oscar-nominated composer Hauschka and director Rob Petit, he also produced the film Upstream (2019) set in the Scottish Cairngorm mountains. In 2017 he received the E. M. Forster Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

How did life on Earth begin? This fundamental question has been explored throughout history by countless philosophers, theologians, artists, and scientists. At this Science Café, the first of a two-part series, experts will discuss beliefs and theories about the origins of life from the perspectives of religion, molecular biology, and earth sciences. What were our hypotheses in the past, and what evidence do we have today? Will we ever definitively know the secret of life’s origins? Explore these questions and more with our esteemed panelists. Gather with us for another virtual Peabody Science Café, a series dedicated to informal conversations with scholars on natural history themes.

Social trust isn’t just a warm, fuzzy idea. If we don’t have it, democracy grinds to a halt. People feel unmoored. Mental illness, suicide, violence and loneliness increase. Neighbors don’t know or rely on each other. Join Weave: The Social Fabric Project and the Gen Next Foundation to discuss why trust is disappearing in our nation, particularly across generations, and what we can do to weave together a nation that is tearing apart at the seams.

Even though spicy foods cause burning sensations on our tongues, can make our noses run, and can even bring us to tears, humans can’t get enough of spicy foods! What is causing the wide range of reactions we experience when we eat spicy foods? Gather with Dr. Ivette Guzmán from New Mexico State University for a chile pepper dissection to discuss the chemistry of chile peppers and why humans love spicy foods.

Internet pioneers expected freedom and the wisdom of crowds, not that we would all be under the thumb of giant corporations profiting from a market in disinformation. We can still recover, but at least so far, Silicon Valley appears to be part of the problem more than it is part of the solution. Can we master the demons of our own design? The governance of AI is no simple task. It means rethinking deeply how we govern our companies, our markets and our society—not just managing a stand-alone new technology. It will be unbelievably hard—one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century—but it is also a tremendous opportunity.

The title for this panel takes as its inspiration the words of philosopher and activist Grace Lee Boggs (Barnard College '35). In her call for visionary organizing, she remarked, "We have to reimagine." This interdisciplinary panel will address the historical roots and current manifestations of anti-Asian racism and violence in our collective efforts to reimagine. Join this conversation with Columbia faculty members from across the disciplines to discuss this important topic. Panelists include: Ellie Hisama (Organizer & Moderator), Professor of Music, Faculty of Arts & Sciences; David Henry Hwang, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, School of the Arts; Akemi Kochiyama, Director of Advancement, Manhattan Country School and Co-Director, Yuri Kochiyama Archives Project; Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Lecturer in Writing, School of the Arts; Lydia Liu, Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities, East Asian Languages & Cultures, Faculty of Arts & Sciences; and Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History, Faculty of Arts & Sciences.

In this lecture, Alan Rosen considers the special manner of witness found in Holocaust-era calendars composed in ghettos, in camps, and in hiding. The marking of fast days and festivals tell a remarkable story; the form, organization, and languages of the calendars convey a related one. And as with testimony in general, what is omitted—a date or a month, a name or a script—speaks volumes. At times, moreover, such calendars served as vehicles for sacred writings, images and symbols as well as for camouflaged defiance. The lecture is based on his recent book The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy.

As part of "In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities," a virtual conference exploring the critical intersection between the humanities and artificial intelligence, gather with us for a panel discussion featuring: Matthew Booker, Moderator, Vice President for Scholarly Programs, National Humanities Center; Sarah E. Igo, Andrew Jackson Professor of History, Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science, Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt University; Ross Andersen, Deputy Editor, The Atlantic; Nita A. Farahany, Robinson O. Everett Professor of Law & Philosophy, Founding Director of Duke Science & Society, Chair of the Duke MA in Bioethics & Science Policy, Duke University; and Dr. Louis J. Muglia, President, Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Gather with ROM's Deborah Metsger and Mark Peck as they discuss the global importance of Earth Day initiatives, and opportunities for each of us to get involved in our local communities. Deborah Metsger, Assistant Curator of Botany at the Royal Ontario Museum is responsible for our Green Plant Herbarium, which holds 1.1 million specimens of dried pressed plants, mosses and liverworts, seeds, pollen and plant objects. Her research interests include hybridization in native maples, the Flora of Ontario, and plants as the intersection of science and culture. Deb is also a co-author of the ROM Fieldguide to the Wildflowers of Ontario (2004), and the City of Toronto Biodiversity Series booklet Trees, Shrubs and Vines of Toronto (2016) and is currently co-writing a new ROM Fieldguide to Trees of Ontario. She is on the curatorial team for the ROM’s Keenan Family Gallery of Hands on-Biodiversity and the native plant gardens in the Helga and Mike Schmidt Performance Terrace and the Reed Family Plaza. Mark Peck is the Manager of the Schad Gallery of Biodiversity and the ROM Director of the Environmental Visual Communications program with the ROM and Fleming College. Mark has been with the ROM since 1983, with most of that time in Ornithology. Mark is the Program Director for the Toronto Ornithological Club, ROM liaison for the Ontario Bird Records Committee, a consultant for Ontario Birds/Ontario Field Ornithologists, and a member of the Ontario Biodiversity Council. Mark is an avid natural history photographer with a special interest in breeding and nesting birds. He has traveled worldwide with the ROM, but he still considers Ontario and the Canadian Arctic his favorite research locations.

Gather with us for a Davenport College Tea featuring Marlon James on his new book "Black Leopard Red Wolf," a Finalist for the National Book Award and New York Times Bestseller. This event is co-hosted by the Million Books Project.

Please join the UVA Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for a session of the Racial Equity Speaker Series, featuring Dean Nicole Jenkins and Dean Ian Solomon in conversation with Ibram X. Kendi. Ibram X. Kendi is a #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning author, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. His relentless and passionate research puts into question the notion of a post-racial society and opens readers’ and audiences’ eyes to the reality of racism in America today. Kendi’s lectures are sharp, informative, and hopeful, serving as a strong platform for any institution’s discussions on racism and being antiracist. Kendi is the author of Stamped from the Begining: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and The Black Campus Movement, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize. He is also the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers, How to Be an Antiracist, and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, a young adult remix of Stamped from the Beginning, co-authored with Jason Reynolds. He most recently authored the #1 Indie bestseller, Antiracist Baby, available as a board book and picture book for caretakers and little ones.

Please join the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard for a discussion on the correlation between climate change solutions and sustainable food futures through plant-based meat with Rebekah Moses, Head of Impact Strategy at Impossible Foods Inc. Drawing on her experience with Impossible Foods, Rebekah will discuss plant based dietary shifts as negative emissions technology, as well as consumer and policy awareness gaps around the livestock sector in climate action. She will also discuss plant-based industry scale-up and the varying implications for land, biodiversity, climate, and food security. The program will be hosted by the Center for Public Leadership's Louis and Gabrielle Bacon Environmental Leadership Fellowship, led by senior fellow and HKS adjunct lecturer in public policy Rand Wentworth. Moderating the conversation will be Hana Rouse MPP 2022 with opening remarks by Salina Abraham MPP 2022.

Marion Kaplan, Skirball Prof. of Modern Jewish History, New York University, will present this lecture. Kaplan will describe the travails of refugees escaping Nazi Europe and awaiting their fate in Portugal. Drawing attention not only to the social and physical upheavals of refugee existence, the talk highlights their feelings as they fled their homes and histories while begging strangers for kindness. Life in limbo has at its core anxiety and fear, but also courage and resilience. Most refugees in Portugal showed strength and stamina as they faced unimagined challenges. For them, Lisbon emerged as a site of temporality and transition, a “no-man’s-land” between a painful past and a hopeful future. Paying careful attention to the words of refugees in Portugal may help us to understand Jewish heartbreak and perseverance in the 1940s and also to listen compassionately to refugees’ stories in our own times.

Join the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and Hybrid Vigor Music in celebration of Earth Day 2021 with A Passion for the Planet: Art and Science in Concert. At the convergence of art and science is a powerful message about the climate crisis. Scott Wing, Research Geologist and Curator of Paleobotany at NMNH, moderates a discussion between A Passion for the Planet composer Geoffrey Hudson, National Endowment for the Arts Chief of Staff Ra Joy, and climate scientist and author Michael E. Mann, about the intersection of art, storytelling and science. Following the conversation, stick around for a special director’s cut style performance of A Passion for the Planet with Hudson and Mann, who’s famous “Hockey Stick” graph depicting the rapid rise in temperature change in the 20th century is set to music in Hudson’s oratorio. As the performance unfolds, Hudson and Mann will share commentary and answer questions live via chat. Register to receive a link and password to join the discussion.

In this fun, interactive, virtual workshop participants will learn how to accurately render a face in a simple quick sketch. The instructor, Cassandra Harner, was trained with Kamans Art Shoppes to draw a face in under 15 minutes. Participants will be introduced to a technique that lays a foundation of shadows and highlights in pastel that is consistent to most faces, so details can be added with a pencil to achieve a likeness to the subject. This step-by-step method can take out a lot of the guesswork students may be experiencing when rendering a portrait with the many colors available. This technique will simplify and streamline the drawing process. Participants must provide their own supplies. See supply list on registration page. Class is conducted via Zoom.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes inspiration from a Mughal watercolor of a pink flower made around 1770. Like the plant, we’ll grow from our roots, stand tall, reach toward the sun, and find ways to blossom. Instructor Emily Kamen (MA ’20, she/her) is an art historian, educator, environmentalist, and lover of movement. A life-long dancer, her yoga practice strengthened and developed while she was an undergraduate student at Princeton University. She completed her 200-level teacher training at YogaStream in 2014 and has been teaching students of all ages and abilities since. Having trained under Lara Heimann, physical therapist and founder of LYT yoga, Emily’s practice is grounded in principles of functional mobility and alignment. In addition to yoga studios, her classes are often sited in art museums and organic vegetable farms. Emily is always looking for creative ways to combine and refine her passions for art, environmental consciousness, living beings of all species, and joyful movement.

A work of extraordinary range and striking originality, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the twentieth century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close connections between the making of constitutions and the making of war. In the process, Linda Colley both reappraises famous constitutions and recovers those that have been marginalized but were central to the rise of a modern world. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She illuminates their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel. Colley shows how—while advancing epic revolutions and enfranchising white males—constitutions frequently served over the long nineteenth century to marginalize indigenous people, exclude women and people of color, and expropriate land. Simultaneously, though, she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seeking to resist European and American power. Professor of history at Princeton, Linda Colley is the author of books including Britons, winner of the Wolfson Prize, and The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, a New York Times “Top 10” Book-of-the-Year. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

After a year of sourdough in the headlines, Martin Philip, baking ambassador at the renowned King Arthur Baking Company and award-winning cookbook author, joins us to share a pro’s secrets for baking the perfect sourdough bread. Martin demonstrates the entire process involved in the classic French loaf known as Pain au Levain, explaining what’s involved in making the starter — the natural leavening agent that precludes the need for yeast — mixing and folding the dough, and shaping, scoring and baking the loaf. Martin slices through the finished bread’s gorgeous crust to reveal the wonderfully open crumb that results from the demonstrated method and recipe — a favorite from the award-winning King Arthur baking book. Each element is at its “ready” stage so you can gain knowledge of the full bread baking experience in a single 90-minute class, which also includes plenty of time for questions. Join us and learn how to create the ultimate sourdough boule (or bâtard), straight from a master bread baker. This program will be recorded and available for later viewing by those who register.

Meet the sea otters at Shedd Aquarium—virtually! In our new Virtual Sea Otter Encounter, come face-to-face with the playful, adorable sea otters that call Shedd home. This experience is all about getting up close—join us behind the scenes (virtually) for a sea otter play session, watch them dive, socialize, vocalize and groom and find out how their sustainable, restaurant-quality food prep happens. Will you play with pups Cooper and Watson? Watch Yaku’s pocket in action? Visit Luna while she snacks on sea urchins? Dive in and explore the world of sea otters firsthand! This 35–40 minute virtual Sea Otter Encounter will take place on Zoom so you can enjoy the experience without leaving home. Whether you call Chicago home or live across the world, we welcome you to join us during this 35–40 minute experience and virtually meet Luna, Kiana, Cooper, Watson and/or Yaku up close and participate virtually in a session with our animal care team. You’ll go behind the scenes to watch how they can store food in "pockets" under their arms, see how these small animals with big appetites can eat 25% of their body weight in food a day and so much more!

Gather with us as MODA joins forces with Badass Cross Stitch, aka Shannon Downey, to offer free Craftivism 101 classes every month. In April, we’ll be working on projects to celebrate the birthday of a legendary (and truly badass) wartime craftivist, Phyllis LaTour Doyle! Get acquainted with craftivism, learn to embroider, stitch something brilliant, and make friends—all in just 2 hours! Craft-based activism has been used as a tool of resistance, coalition building, and even espionage! Learn from Shannon Downey, a leader in the modern craftivism movement. She will provide an introduction to craftivism, teach you how to embroider, and have you stabbing it out in no time. She guarantees you'll walk away feeling better than when you logged in. This event is free, but you must register in advance to receive the Zoom login details. The ideal supply list includes: embroidery hoop; cotton fabric in light colors; 22 gauge tapestry needle; embroidery floss; scissors; water soluble marking pen; and, if you want, an embroidery pattern (not a cross stitch pattern).

Have you taken a storytelling, improv, or writing class and not wanted it to end? This is the class after the class, the one where you keep those creative gears turning. Maybe you need to grease up those wheels some, but you know it always feels better to create art out of your life. In this workshop, we will get into the guts of your stories. There will probably be glitter and a few tears. Through structured feedback, the class will become a single unit for the support of all. Storytelling will take you there. This seminar also includes an hour of private coaching and the opportunity to share your story live as part of Story Sessions.

Discover the innovative practices of three artists who have turned to textiles—incorporating or referring to them in their work—in this discussion moderated by Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Director Julie Rodrigues Widholm. Aaron McIntosh is a cross-disciplinary artist and fourth-generation quilt maker whose work mines the intersections of material culture, family tradition, sexual desire, and identity politics. His work has been exhibited at numerous museums, including the Los Angeles Craft & Folk Art Museum and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art in New York, and in the 2021 exhibition Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change at the Toledo Museum of Art. McIntosh also manages Invasive Queer Kudzu, a community storytelling and archive project across the LGBTQ South. He is a recipient of the 2020 United States Arts Fellowship in Craft. Marie Watt, a citizen of the Seneca Nation, explores the intersection of history, community, and storytelling with interdisciplinary work that draws from history, biography, Iroquois protofeminism, and Indigenous teachings. Her artwork is in the collections of major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. It was recently featured in a New York Times review of the exhibition Between Earth and Sky at Kasmin Gallery in New York. Ebony Patterson employs opulent, hand-embellished surfaces and brightly colored patterns to seduce the viewer into bearing witness to violence and social injustice imposed on the invisible and the voiceless. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Patterson exhibits nationally and internationally. Her first major survey . . . while the dew is still on the roses . . . opened at Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2018 before traveling to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The first major solo West Coast exhibition of her work, . . . when the cuts erupt . . . the garden rings . . . and the warning is a wailing . . ., recently opened at the ICA San Jose. Patterson’s work is featured in this year’s Athens and Liverpool biennials.

While polarization may seem like the hallmark of American politics, a global pandemic in the midst of the 2020 presidential election and a reckoning over race has only deepened the political divide. So, what’s next regarding this political division? How can we achieve a sense of unity and what does it mean if we don’t? Join political analyst Amy Walter, political scientist Valerie C. Johnson, presidential expert Barbara A. Perry, and political columnist Mona Charen for a panel discussion about political polarization and the roadmap to reunification.

Napata (modern Jebel Barkal), located on the Middle Nile in what is now northern Sudan, was an urban center for nearly 2,000 years, at least 1500 BCE to 250 CE. While earlier generations of research at the site focused on the monumental pyramids, temples, and palaces that are its most visible remains, a new project at the site aims to reconceptualize these scattered monuments as parts of an ancient city. Magnetometry and test excavation in 2019 and 2020 have identified a previously unrecognized area of settlement (a "lost city") and begin to allow us to evaluate the local environment and economy.

Artist Catherine Wagner has long been interested in literature and architecture, and she often explores the context in which the photographs are integrated within site-specific installations. This has resulted in an expanded studio practice, working collaboratively with architects and fabricators. During this program, Wagner will talk about various installations from LACMA, Comme Des Garcon, and the Mills College Art Museum, as well as public art projects in Los Angeles, Seattle, and the central subway in San Francisco. Over the course of her career, Catherine Wagner has been observing the built environment as a metaphor for how we construct our cultural identities. In 2001, Ms. Wagner was named one of Time Magazine’s Fine Arts Innovators of the Year. Her work is represented in major collections such as the deYoung Museum, LACMA, SFMoMA, The Whitney Museum, MoMA, among others.

Dickens confessed to having a "favorite child" among his novels, and critics have largely agreed, calling David Copperfield his masterpiece and his triumph. It is also the most autobiographical of Dickens's novels—a story about coming of age, ambition, family, and second chances. Much like Dickens himself, David shows promise as a young child but is taken out of school and put to work in a factory. In what has become one of the most famous pilgrimages in literary history, the young David sets out without money, parents, or prospects to search for his aunt, a woman he knows only through his mother’s memory. And this journey serves as a microcosm of the larger quest David embarks on as he sets out to become, like Dickens, a great author. Along the way, David meets some of the most memorable supporting-cast members in all of Dickens’s work: Betsey Trotwood, Uriah Heep, and Wilkins Micawber. In this course, we will read Dickens's novel while situating it in its biographical, historical, and cultural context. We will consider how Dickens made the genre of the bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, his own. Turning to Dickens's role as a social critic, we will consider how his portrayals of Victorian work, education, family, empire, and gender roles (especially the figure of the "fallen woman”) speak to our contemporary debates.

Art Forum is the Victorian College of the Arts’ series of weekly talks by leading artists and curators. Providing a rich insight into their work and its relationship with the world, each guest speaker shares the themes, processes and ideas that drive their practice. This week: Gabriella Hirst. Gabriella Hirst (she/her) was born and grew up on Cammeraygal land and is currently living between Berlin and London. She works primarily with moving image, performance, and with the garden as a site of critique and care. Gabriella’s practice and research explores connections between various manifestations of capture and control - spanning plant taxonomies, landscape painting, art conservation and nuclear history. Gabriella recently launched Darling Darling, the 2020 ACMI/Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, which is currently showing at the new ACMI, to be followed by exhibition as part of The National 2021 at AGNSW. Gabriella is currently an associate lecturer in Media Studies with the Royal College of Art, School of Architecture in London. (Note, live from Melbourne, this event begins at 7:30pm PT in the US on April 21.)

The votes are counted. Now, the task of building a government begins. President-elect Joe Biden must come into office prepared to solve an economic crisis and manage a pandemic on Inauguration Day and beyond. In a virtual forum in mid-December, Atlantic journalists led conversations exploring what it takes to create a team and set a new course for national policy and politics. We heard from present and former government officials and election experts with unique perspectives on executive branch transitions and what the on-ramp to the presidency looks like.

The Navajo Nation, which sprawls across close to eighteen million acres, has been hit hard by the pandemic. Watch as the New Yorker follows the work of local journalists covering the crisis. Spend twenty minutes to learn how one newspaper is covering the crisis in the most under-connected part of the United States.

Former vice president Al Gore has been sounding the alarm about the global climate crisis for decades. Elected in 1976 to the House of Representatives, Gore held some of the first congressional hearings on the subject. He continued the fight throughout his political career and beyond, becoming a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to inform the world about the dangers posed by climate change. This Earth Day he discusses several topics, including how to fight disinformation with science, the importance of cutting global emissions and investing in clean energy. Join Washington Post opinions writer Jonathan Capehart on Thursday, April 22 at 9:00am ET.

This three session workshop will provide participants with an overview of the importance of self-care, placed within the context of challenges related to social distancing. A blend of research-based approaches to self-care and practical suggestions for managing a changing work and personal landscape in order to enhance wellness will equip attendees to modify existing practices or develop new methods for thriving during uncertainty. The course meetings will be offered via remote synchronous delivery with voluntary interactive components to enhance the attendee learning experience. The three-part course will cover: 1. Principles of Self-Care and Wellness; 2. Mindfulness Practices; 3. Additional Components of a Healthy Lifestyle: Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise.

In the heat of June in 1943, a wave of destructive and deadly civil unrest took place in the streets of Detroit. The city was under the pressures of both wartime industrial production and the nascent civil rights movement, setting the stage for massive turmoil and racial violence. With “Run Home If You Don’t Want to Be Killed,” Rachel Marie-Crane Williams delivers a graphic retelling of the racism and tension leading up to the violence of those summer days. By incorporating firsthand accounts collected by the NAACP and telling them through a combination of hand-drawn images, historical dialogue and narration, Williams makes the history and impact of these events immediate, and in showing us what happened, she reminds us that many issues of the time — police brutality, state-sponsored oppression, economic disparity, white supremacy — plague our country to this day. Williams is associate professor of art and art history, and gender, women’s and sexuality studies, at the University of Iowa. This virtual event will be hosted by Josh Hockensmith, Art Library technical assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries. This talk is part of Off the Shelf, a collaboration between the University Libraries and the UNC Press to present new works on racial and social justice in our history and our world. The talk is co-presented by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and Arts Everywhere at UNC-Chapel Hill.

When the Supreme Court announced its 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, the decision to force that agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants was immediately hailed as a landmark. But in October 1999, when Joe Mendelson hand-delivered a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency asking it to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from new cars, the outlook was not promising. Could something as ordinary as carbon dioxide be considered a harmful pollutant? And could the EPA be forced to regulate emissions? In The Rule of Five, law professor Richard J. Lazarus tells the gripping story of the most important environmental law case ever decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Four poets from North Carolina's majestic Blue Ridge Mountains to its scenic coastal waters will celebrate Earth Day with readings of haiku and nature poems. Featured Poets: AMBER FLORA THOMAS is the author of Eye of Water: Poems which was selected by Harryette Mullen as the winner of the 2004 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Her other books include, The Rabbits Could Sing: Poems (University of Alaska Press, 2012) and Red Channel in the Rupture: Poems (Red Hen Press, 2018). MATTHEW WIMBERLEY grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is the author of All the Great Territories (South Illinois University Press, 2020). A Localist poet, his chapbook Snake Mountain Almanac was selected by Eduardo C. Corral as the winner of the 2014 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Contest from Seven Kitchens Press. GIDEON YOUNG is the author of the haiku collection my hands full of light (Backbone Press, 2021). He is a member of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective, a Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina, and a stay-at-home dad. CRYSTAL SIMONE SMITH is a prize-winning poet and author of two poetry chapbooks, Routes Home (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and Running Music (Longleaf Press, 2014). She is also the author of Wildflowers: Haiku, Senryu, and Haibun, 2016 and a forthcoming collection of poems, Down to Earth (Longleaf Press, 2021). Her co-authored book, One Window's Light: A Collection of Haiku (Unicorn Press, 2017) won the Haiku Society of America Merit Award for Best Anthology.

Interacting live with one of the Museum’s educators, discover what makes a whale a whale, how whales use sound, and what we can do to help protect them in our oceans today. This highly visual program allows participants to ask questions in real-time while exploring life-sized whale models, looking at real whale artifacts, and listening to actual whale recordings. Registrants will also receive access to additional science activities to prepare for the program or to continue learning and exploring afterward. A great activity for adults, or families. Participants will: Discover the characteristics scientists use to classify whales and other cetaceans; Listen to audio files and see visual representations of sounds of different cetacean species; Discuss various ways we can help protect whales today; Learn how you can participate in the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Ocean Beat Project.

Lots of old photographs? Puzzled about how to preserve them and identify who might be in them, especially if they are old? This presentation is part of a virtual series hosted by the Friends of the Library and initiated by the Library Board of Advocates to share the wonders of the University Library at Illinois. Gather with us for this special presentation by Jennifer Hain Teper, Velde Professor and Head of Preservation Services, University of Illinois Library. This live, online presentation will help attendees better discern between different original photographic prints as well as better understand some basic preservation challenges and tips in caring for and storing these materials. Attendees will view examples of common historic prints starting with early cased photographs such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes up through modern digitally-produced images, observing common characteristics visible with the naked eye, as well as with minor magnification. Typical preservation challenges for individual formats will be covered, as well as general tips for handling and storage. Advance registration required.

Gather with Leakey Foundation grantees Andrea Baden and Stacey Tecot on this special Earth Day episode of Lunch Break Science and learn about lemur behavior and ecology.

Technology has allowed us to examine the challenge of climate change from fresh angles and accelerate new solutions, many of which have the added benefit of improving public health. Measures to reduce carbon emissions from transport can improve air quality and reduce pollution. Carbon-friendly farming and agriculture can improve nutrition. What is the role of technology in advancing our understanding of the intersection of climate and health? What scalable tech solutions are already in place? And are big tech missing vital opportunities within their portfolios of existing products and services? Join us on April 22 for the debate.

Join us for a fireside chat with Priscilla Chan, Co-founder and Co-CEO of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. As a pediatrician and teacher, Priscilla’s work with patients and students in communities across the Bay Area has informed her desire to make learning more personalized, find new paths to manage and cure disease, and expand opportunity for more people. She is also the founder of The Primary School, which integrates health and education and serves children and families in East Palo Alto and the Belle Haven neighborhood in Menlo Park, California. Priscilla earned her BA in Biology at Harvard University and her MD at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her pediatrics training in the UCSF/PLUS Pediatrics Residency.

Amid an outcry over anti-Asian violence and harassment, filmmaker and writer Bee Vang turns the spotlight in Hollywood and its role in promulgating anti-Asian ideas. The son of immigrants, Hmong-American actor and activist Vang starred as Thao Vang Lor in Clint Eastwood's 2008 film Gran Torino and has appeared in "Modern Family" and Comisery. He has performed in independent films and on stage at Brown University, where he received a 2016 liberal arts degree in international politics, media and cultural studies. Vang worked at MSNBC with "The Rachel Maddow Show," at The Economist and at a research institute at Columbia University. After several years working as a print journalist, nonfiction writer and policy researcher, he recently moved to Los Angeles to devote himself to acting, filmmaking and other creative pursuits.

Join Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum for a virtual Earth Day celebration. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore the importance of sustainability and learn how we can rethink “trash” to make sustainable prototypes with guest designer, Mx. Rich. Participants have the option to build a 3-dimensional design using everyday materials from their home. If you are interested in building a design, please collect materials prior to the workshop and have them ready for the workshop. Participation in all activities is possible without materials, or you can use a paper and any writing tools to record your brainstorming ideas. Suggested Materials for workshop on registration page. Note: This is a beginner workshop, no prior experience in design required to participate.

A pioneering scholar of African and African American studies, Kwame Anthony Appiah rose to prominence as the author of thoughtful and provocative books on the complexities of modern society, including Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006), The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (2010), and The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity (2018). Since 2015, he has gained a wide following for the clear, discerning insights he offers every week as “The Ethicist.” Raised first in Ghana and later in Britain, Professor Appiah earned both his BA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. He has lectured widely around the world and taught at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Duke, and the University of Ghana, as well as serving for more than a decade on the faculty at Princeton. He is now a professor of philosophy and law at New York University. Professor Appiah’s work has been in the philosophy of mind and language, ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of art, of culture, and of the social sciences, especially anthropology; as well as in literary studies, where he has focused on African and African American literature. He has served as President of the Modern Language Association (2016) and the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (2007); Chair of the APA Board (2008–2011); and on the boards of the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Public Library, the Public Theater, and the PEN American Center. In 2012, President Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal. In addition to those referenced above, his publications include Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity and As If: Idealization and Ideals, along with three novels, one set at his alma mater, Clare College.

Methane Studios is an illustration and design studio co-founded by Mark McDevitt and Robert Lee. The team met at the Columbus College of Art and Design, where they both majored in illustration. After graduating in 1989, the two moved from Ohio to Atlanta, where they worked as illustrators for various companies. In 1998 they founded their studio with a focus on screen-printed gig posters for touring bands. Their styles combine vintage aesthetic and contemporary design showcasing strong narrative and bold, imaginative imagery. In addition to limited edition posters and art design, Methane Studios has a variety of custom items available for purchase in stores in Georgia, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Tennessee, including coasters, tote bags, hats, greeting cards, jotters, tea towels and more. Their first book, 21st Century Schizoid Brand, is a retrospective of Methane Studios' work from 1998-2020.

Brooklyn-based artist KAWS joins Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, for an intimate look at the inspiration and process behind the artworks in our special exhibition KAWS: WHAT PARTY. KAWS discusses his wide-ranging practice, from his early days of graffiti writing in the streets of New York and Jersey City to the development of the characters that populate his paintings, large-scale sculptures, and beloved collectibles. Zoom link will be emailed upon confirmation.

Learn how to make the classic French dish quenelles de brochet from one of its greatest interpreters: chef Laëtitia Rouabah of Benoit New York by Alain Ducasse. A pièce de résistance of lyonnaise cuisine, this dish is delicately composed of yellow pike mousse and creamy lobster bisque. It is a signature item on the bistro’s menu. Filmed in Benoit’s kitchen, Chef Laëtitia will take us through the history behind this famous dish and give a demonstration with step-by-step instructions on how to make it at home. Afterwards, she’ll answer your burning question in a live Q&A from the restaurant’s private salon.

In this unique series, top flight of architects and structural engineers will present public lectures on some of the most innovative work being done in contemporary structural design as part of a unique physics undergraduate course offered this Spring Quarter at the University of Chicago. All the virtual talks are free and open to the general public. This week: Jamie Carpenter, designer of the Midway Crossings light towers and the facade of William Eckhardt Research Center.

Are you interested in taking an improv class, but you're not quite sure if it's right for you? Give it a test drive! Our weekly drop-in improv class for beginners is open to everyone, whether you have ever improvised or not. It's a great opportunity to practice, have some fun, and meet new people! We’ve figured out how to bring real, live fun straight from The Second City to you! Our totally digital, totally FUN improv drop-in classes are for anyone looking for 90 minutes of fun and creativity---with other people. All you need is an internet connection and a camera, and we’ll have you “yes, and”-ing in no time. This crash course is taught by our Second City Training Center comedy pros in Chicago, LA, and Toronto. Sign up by yourself, or encourage your friends to join your session for a virtual get-together!

The fourth title selected for T Magazine’s book club, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith, tells the story of a young American grifter in Italy. Tom Ripley arrives in the fictional town of Mongibello with the assigned task of convincing Dickie Greenleaf, the son of a shipping magnate, to return to the States. Instead, Tom — seduced by the ease with which charming, wealthy Dickie is able to move through life — becomes his constant companion. But Tom’s fondness for and envy of his new friend grow to the point of obsession, and he soon raises the stakes of the confidence game he’s been playing all along. On April 22, watch a virtual discussion about the book, featuring the writer Edmund White in conversation with T features director Thessaly La Force, that will address questions from readers. And, in the weeks leading up to the event, look for articles on “The Talented Mr. Ripley” at tmagazine.com. We hope you'll read along — and R.S.V.P. above.

In a year where very few movies actually opened in theaters and many of us spent hours streaming content on line, what do the Academy Awards mean in the context of the Pandemic? Join us for a staff discussion of how the movie industry has been affected by Covid-19 and our changed viewing habits, with Josephine Livingstone—TNR staff writer; Laura Marsh—TNR literary editor; Alex Shephard—TNR staff writer; and Moderator: Ryu Spaeth—TNR features editor.

Gather with us for a special Earth Day edition of the Museum’s Frontiers Lecture series with Museum Curator Nathalie Goodkin as she unpacks how sea surface temperatures, salinity, and ocean circulation systems change over time and are critical to forecasting climate in the future. Today’s climate is driven by the Earth’s ocean conveyor belt, which moves water from the tropics to the poles and through ocean basins. The only point of tropical water exchange on the planet occurs through the Maritime Continent, which spans from East Asia to Australia and consists of several archipelagos and shallow seas. Our knowledge of this region is limited by scarce instrumental data despite its importance in heat transfer and monsoon formation. But there is another way to peek into the climate past. Find out how marine geochemists use a surprising hydrographic data repository in corals to gain insights into climate activity over seasons and decades, even hundreds of years.

Join us for an online conversation with artists Erina Alejo and Adrian L. Burrell, whose photographs are shown together (Floor 3, through Sep 6) as part of the series Bay Area Walls. In these commissions, both artists respond to the storefront murals and signage that have appeared in San Francisco and Oakland during the pandemic. Alejo and Burrell will be in conversation with scholars Dr. Tiffany E. Barber and Kazumi Chin. This event is co-presented with Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and in partnership with Kearny Street Workshop. About the Speakers Artist and researcher Erina Alejo, born and raised in San Francisco, works across time and place to construct archives on labor, displacement, family, and communal history. Alejo’s SFMOMA commission, My Ancestors Followed Me Here, explores the textures, cultural landmarks, objects, and people along San Francisco’s vibrant Mission Street before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Born and raised in Oakland, Adrian L. Burrell is a storyteller who uses photography, film, and site-specific installation to examine issues of race, class, gender, and intergenerational dynamics. His SFMOMA commission, It’s After the End of the World, Don’t You Know That Yet?, is a collective self-portrait that examines the normalized violence inflicted on Black lives in American society. Dr. Tiffany E. Barber (moderator) is a scholar, curator, and critic of visual art, new media, and performance of the Black diaspora, who has published widely on abstraction, Afrofuturism, Black feminist praxis, dance, and fashion. Kazumi Chin (moderator) is a poet, educator, and student of cultural studies at UC Davis. Support for Public Programs and Artist Talks at SFMOMA is provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Distinguished Lecture Series

The story of the Boston Massacre is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, most accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political. Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. She reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied the armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs, and sharing baptisms. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human and now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution. Serena Zabin’s book "The Boston Massacre: A Family History" was awarded the 2020 Book of the Year Prize from the Journal of the American Revolution. She is Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Carleton College.

Empire of Pain (Doubleday) is a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin — written by Patrick Radden Keefe, the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions — Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. In his new book, Keefe chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama — baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes. Keefe will be joined in conversation by Lydia Polgreen, journalist and head of content for Gimlet Media.

A manuscript in the collection of the Getty Museum contains the only image of Little Robert of Bury to survive from the Middle Ages. Promoted as a Christian martyr murdered by Jews, the story of Little Robert was likely invented by an abbot looking to garner support in an election year. Blood libel is the false and incendiary claim that Jews kill Christian children for use in rituals that mock the crucifixion. In this conversation, a panel of experts discusses the medieval origins of blood libel mythology and its pervasive reverberations in today’s visual and political landscape. Panelists: Ben Katchor is a cartoonist and illustrator whose picture-stories have been collected in a number of books including Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. He is associate professor at Parsons, The New School, in New York City. Sara Lipton is professor of history at Stony Brook University, New York, and a scholar of medieval Europe, with a focus on Jewish-Christian relations. She is the author of Dark Mirror: The Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography. Magda Teter is professor of history and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies at Fordham University. She is the author of Blood Libel: On the Trail of An Anti-Semitic Myth. Moderated by Blake Gopnik. author of Andy Warhol: A Life as Art. He has been the staff art critic at the Washington Post and Newsweek and is now a regular contributor to the New York Times and NPR's Marketplace.

Tune in on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, at 8:00 p.m. EST for a live Q&A with Paola Antonelli, senior curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, and anthropologist Eduardo Kohn, as they discuss “restorative design” and ways humans can repair their relationship to the environment—as part of our Virtual Views initiative. Something you’d like to ask? MoMA members are invited to submit questions via our online form. (And if you miss the live stream, a recorded version will be available here immediately afterward.)

Historically, human intervention in the workings of our planet has wreaked havoc on nature. Now, human invention may be our best chance to save the Earth, argues Pulitzer Prize-winning winning author Elizabeth Kolbert in her latest book, Under a White Sky. Join Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction) and Eula Biss (Having and Being Had) for a conversation about the perils and hopes of our new geological epoch where trailblazing inventors are already reimagining the nature of the future. Tickets are $35, which includes access to the virtual event and a copy of Under a White Sky shipped directly to your door (U.S. addresses only).

The pandemic has raised significant issues of concern for a democratic society, including that of balancing personal freedom against the greater good. How should this issue be most appropriately addressed during a time of pandemic or national emergency? How well is America actually equipped to handle this kind of crisis and how can we best reconcile the protection of individual rights with the need for a national uniformity of effort? Dr. Frieden is a physician trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health, and epidemiology. He began his public health career in New York City confronting the largest outbreak of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis to occur in the United States. He was then assigned to India, on loan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he helped scale up a program for effective tuberculosis diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. Asked to return to New York City to become Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s health commissioner, he directed efforts to reduce smoking and other leading causes of death that increased life expectancy by 3 years. As director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Frieden oversaw the work that helped end the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic. He now leads Resolve to Save Lives, a $225 million, 5-year initiative of Vital Strategies, working with countries to prevent 100 million deaths and to make the world safer from epidemics. He is also senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Gather with us for an important conversation about protecting the rights and health of Americans.

Laughter is contagious and has a powerful and immediate effect on our mind, body and spirit. Our bodies can’t tell the difference between real or simulated laughter. This class involves deep breathing, stretching, clapping, and laughter exercises. Our laughter exercises in this class can: Increase blood flow and oxygen to all the major organs; Enhance endorphin levels which make us feel uplifted and reduce pain' Stimulate immune, digestive, and cardiac systems; Reduce stress levels; Relax, strengthen, and lengthen the muscles with stretching; Help create a laughing community and be fun!

Take a journey to the Pacific Northwest with your taste buds! Springtime is filled with exciting flavors and one of Gracie's favorites is the deep, earthy magic of the morel mushroom. This class is for those of you that love to eat with the seasons and want to welcome the new season from your kitchen. This class menu includes: Morel Mushroom and Asparagus Flatbreads with Ricotta and Green Garlic Pesto; Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcakes with Lilac Whipped Cream.

At this After Dark, hear from and celebrate voices at the forefront of the environmental justice movement. Founded in 1970 by activist groups, Earth Day is an annual, global event to raise awareness about our natural environment, the threats posed by a changing climate, and the actions we can take to address and mitigate the impacts on our communities. Join us as we look toward our local landscapes, celebrating and highlighting the work of organizations who expose inequitable impacts of climate change and advocate for environmental justice. Working directly with the most impacted communities, these organizations offer tools for climate resilience and advocate for meaningful change through legislation.

We know that it’s important to take care of the entire planet, but this Earth Day, we’re focusing on projects at the zip code level. Get inspired by people and organizations radically changing both the health of the environment and their communities—through sustainable development, environmental justice, citizen science, and the food system—and how these projects can be “greenprints” for larger efforts.

In this New Yorker virtual discussion, actors, directors, and stagehands come together to keep the heart of the city alive while awaiting a physical return to the Broadway stage. Recorded the last week of August, 2020.

As the nation reckons with long-standing issues of race and inequality, some of America’s most powerful philanthropic organizations are shifting their missions to focus on social justice. Elizabeth Alexander, president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, joins Washington Post Live to discuss a new multi-million dollar investment as part of the strategic transformation of the arts and humanities foundation. Alexander will also share her overall vision for harnessing philanthropy for social justice in conversation with Washington Post opinions writer Jonathan Capehart.

Lunch Break Science is a live-streamed web series featuring interviews, short talks, and live audience questions about the latest in human evolution research with Leakey Foundation scientists. This week: Primatologist Eduardo Fernandez-Duque discusses owl monkey pair-bonding and parental care in this episode of Lunch Break Science. Grab your lunch and join primatologist Eduardo Fernandez-Duque as he discusses male-female relationships, pair bonding, and paternal care in owl monkeys and several other monkey species in this episode of Lunch Break Science.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of digital technologies in African countries, and the latest Africa’s Pulse provides new evidence on how digital is enhancing the productivity of existing jobs and creating new jobs, for people of all skill levels and backgrounds. This is particularly important as the region looks toward economic recovery post-pandemic, and many Sub-Saharan African countries are making tremendous investments to advance digital adoption and build skills. Against the backdrop of a COVID-19 induced recession, African countries are weathering the economic storm better than expected and are poised for recovery, but the strength of this recovery depends on the reforms, policies, and investments that countries make now. Hosted by Georja Calvin-Smith of France 24, join a panel of Africa’s distinguished ministers, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the digital space to discuss the future of work in Africa. They will touch on how governments can support digital transformation, discuss the macroeconomic outlook for the region and how to improve prospects for recovery, and encourage Africa’s young people who are driving digital innovation across the region.

Lucky Plush launched Virtual Dance Lab with seed support from our general operating funders and residency partners including the University of Chicago this spring. These classes rely on support from participants. This class is fun for everyone! Things will start basic, work foundational postures, and build incrementally with options and modifications for all levels. There will be breath work, functional movement, and meditation. This is strength and flexibility training for body and mind!

Renowned writer Jamaica Kincaid and groundbreaking visual artist Rosana Paulino will discuss their explorations of the legacies of slavery in their work. They will be joined in conversation by eminent art historian Cheryl Finley. This is the third session of Art Museums and the Legacies of the Dutch Slave Trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures, presented by the Center for Netherlandish Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Harvard Art Museums, and Harvard University’s Department of History of Art and Architecture. This four-part program explores efforts by art museums to deploy their spaces and their collections—which are often enmeshed with colonialism and exploitation—to present more complete narratives of and perspectives on slavery and its legacies.

Gallery Educators Kate Devine and Marc Woodhead explore Degas's 'After the Bath, Woman drying herself.' First, listen to a brief talk then respond by making your own work in this short, artist-led drawing session. Please have to hand a sharp pencil, paper and a rubber. The session will take place online and will last about 1 hour. Sometimes we might suggest using different drawing or craft materials so, if you are able to, keep a pencil case of different colours, a ruler and a pair of scissors nearby, as well as anything else you might like to experiment with.

Do you remember our Cafe’Conversation event ? A screen shouldn’t keep us from chatting and sharing a coffee together! Every month, we invite you to talk on a different theme. Everybody will be able to debate and speak about it. This week: French expression!

Meditation helps us build a relationship to a place of inner quietude. To contribute to a sense of calm in this uncertain time, we are offering free 30-minute online meditations three times each week led by DC-based meditation teachers. These free sessions are appropriate for all levels of practitioners and include a variety of mindfulness practices. This session provides inspiration from art in the museum collections. All are welcome! No previous experience is required. In celebration of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the focus artwork for this session will be a Japanese screen depicting spring.

Join us to find inspiration and strategies for bringing seasonal flowers and foliage into your home. During this online lecture Arrin will discuss local sourcing methods, bloom selection, and care practices to maximize vase life. Learn about tools and base mechanics as you're introduced to the world of successful flower arranging. (Please note: This program is designed for those with a budding interest in floral arrangement and design. Registration for this program will close at 11:55 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on Thursday, April 22, 2021. Participants will be emailed the link to access the program on Friday, April 23, 2021.)

Learn more about how climate change has accelerated a collision between right whales, one of the world’s most endangered species, and the lobster industry, North America’s most valuable fishery. Come meet reporter and documentary filmmaker David Abel at our next Ask The Expert event. Bring your questions and learn more about his new film, Entangled. The film documents how the warming waters of the Gulf of Maine have forced the whales to search for food in new areas, leading to a rise in deaths due to the entanglements in fishing lines and vessel strikes. Over the past decade the right whale population has plummeted by 25 percent, leaving only about 360 left. David Abel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covers fisheries and environmental issues for The Boston Globe. Abel’s work has also won an Edward R. Murrow Award, the Ernie Pyle Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Feature Reporting. Entangled which he directed, reported, and shot, won a Jackson Wild Award and Best Feature Film at the Water Docs Film Festival, Best Conservation Film at the Mystic Film Festival and the John de Graaf Environmental Filmmaking Award at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. David co-directed and produced Sacred Cod, a film about the collapse of the iconic cod fishery in New England, which was broadcast by the Discovery Channel in the spring of 2017. His film Lobster War won the 2018 award for “Best New England Film” at the Mystic Film Festival and was runner-up for the Grand Prize for Best Feature Film at the 2018 International Maritime Film Festival.

Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija is Chief Strategist for CONVINCE Africa, co-chair of the Africa Union Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance and Global Advisory Board Member for WomenLift Health. She is the former Chief Humanitarian Coordinator (CHC) at the helm of the Nigerian Emergency Coordination Centre, she was a high-level interlocutor between state and non-state actors at governmental and intergovernmental levels. Previously, she served with the United Nations. She has also advised on achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the post 2015 development agenda in the areas of health, education and life-skills in Africa (Rwanda, Kenya and Malawi to name but a few), the Caribbean and the Pacific where her input was integral to MDG achievement in certain quarters. A graduate of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London) with a Master of Science Degree in International Development and Public Health, Dr. Alakija is also a published researcher. She has collaborated as lead researcher with the World Health Organisation in the design, coordination and implementation of national health and behavioral surveys across nations.

Join Morgan Docents for an interactive virtual tour of the exhibition David Hockney: Drawing from Life. Participants will view highlights from the exhibition and explore Hockney’s fascinating and lifelong process of portrait-making on paper as he follows a small group of friends, colleagues and family over a span of sixty years. Please note that the program will take place online. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation email with instructions on how to participate using Zoom. Participation is free, but advance registration is required.

All are welcome to a monthly book group moderated by library staff. In April, we will read and discuss Door in the Mountain by Jean Valentine. Registration is required for this event, and opens on April 1, 2021. To register, email library@poetryfoundation.org with the date of the Book Club you would like to attend. To allow for more readers to participate in Book Club, readers are welcome to register for either the April Library Book Club discussion of Door in the Mountain by Jean Valentine or the May Library Book Club discussion of The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde, but not both sessions. All participants residing in the United States will be offered a complimentary copy of the book for the session they are registered in. If you would like to have a copy of that title mailed to you, please include your mailing address in your registration email.

This session includes brief talks, followed by a roundtable discussion, by academics and museum professionals who focus on Dutch and American art and history. Speakers will discuss specific objects—ranging from the 17th to the 21st century—that have posed interpretive and museological challenges. They will also present new possibilities for considering the relationship between slavery’s past and present-day racial injustice. This is the fourth and final session of Art Museums and the Legacies of the Dutch Slave Trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures, presented by the Center for Netherlandish Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Harvard Art Museums, and Harvard University’s Department of History of Art and Architecture. This four-part program explores efforts by art museums to deploy their spaces and their collections—which are often enmeshed with colonialism and exploitation—to present more complete narratives of and perspectives on slavery and its legacies.

In honor of Earth Day and springtime, Helen Frankenthaler's Nature Abhors a Vacuum is the inspiration for this interactive conversation. Join us and share your observations, interpretations, questions, and ideas, and build on your own first impressions to broaden your understanding of this work of art. This session lasts one hour and is completely interactive. Gallery educators will facilitate the conversation to create an environment for shared learning. These conversations will encourage you to engage deeply with art, with others, and with the world around you as you hone skills in visual literacy and perspective-taking. This program is free and open to the public with advance registration, and is designed for anyone interested in talking about art. No art or art history background is required.

Combating climate change is no small task. Through multi-level cooperation, collaboration, and public-private partnerships, starting at home provides a tangible path forward. Join us for a conversation on local innovation that celebrates sustainable initiatives and the work that communities can do together.

The Hammer's curatorial department leads free, insightful, short discussions about artists in Made in L.A. 2020 online every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. This week: Artist Alexandra Noel. Alexandra Noel was born in 1989 in Columbus, Ohio. She studied at the University of San Diego and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Noel's uncannily small-scale paintings examine visual paradoxes and humorous absurdities, often focusing on babies, domestic objects, and suburbia in the context of late capitalism.

Each Friday afternoon, the Frick is concocting the perfect mix of cocktails and art. Gather with others for a weekly happy hour as a Frick curator (remotely) offers insights on a work of art with a complementary cocktail. Bring your own beverage to this virtual event, whether alcoholic or not! Get your weekend started with 30 minutes of fun and enlightening conversation about art along with a refreshing beverage you make yourself!

In this course students are introduced to traditional and non-traditional materials and methods used in water-based painting. Projects include painting from observation and the imagination, using current artist practices and historical examples. Working from a variety of subjects, students may use ink, acrylic, watercolor, and mixed media within their works while building skills in color, tone, volume, contrast, and temperature. Virtual visits to the Art Institute of Chicago provide inspiration. Classes meet Friday evening, and Saturday and Sunday over two weeks.

Gather with us for an inside look at The Adachi Project, a first-of-its-kind storytelling initiative that spotlights powerful stories and unseen perspectives of the U.S. criminal legal system via compelling documentary film, video and photojournalism. Following an introduction to The Adachi Project by Mano Raju and Santhosh Daniel, we'll view one of the films from the project and feature a discussion with the people involved.

Recharge by taking a participatory journey into the Getty Museum collection with a gallery educator and other art enthusiasts from around the world. Discover new ways of connecting with art and each other online through a shared experience of close looking and discussion. Whether you are an avid museum-goer or a first-timer, come as you are for this casual, hour-long session. Theme changes monthly. April's theme is Nature! Free. All adult learners are welcome. Advance registration is required to access the Zoom meeting. Limited space available.

Featuring Folger Shakespeare Library Director Dr. Michael Witmore, Insight Partners Co-Founder Jerry Murdock, and Utah Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Brian Vaughn, in conversation with Movers and Shakespeares Vice President and longtime Aspen Institute Moderator Ken Adelman. The panel will discuss the Folger Shakespeare Library collection and scholarship work, as well as Murdock’s interpretation and production of Hamlet, which was directed by Vaughn. How do the politics of Shakespeare’s time inform this interpretation of Hamlet? Why did Ophelia’s role need to be reexamined?

Wes Moore is CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, the largest anti-poverty force in New York City, funding more than 200 organizations to build equality and lift families out of poverty. In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moore joins The Post's Michele Norris to discuss the opportunity for business to support philanthropy while also answering calls for social justice.

There has never been a night like BIG NIGHT (At the Museum). Troubled times often bring out the best in us all, and these times have called for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to remove some of its most treasured instruments from their cases, and place them in the hands of modern masters for an unprecedented night of music. In this on-demand opportunity, you can enjoy the live broadcast from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville where some of country's greatest current stars were able to play on the Museum's historic instruments, for one night only.

In today’s world, maintaining a self-sufficient lifestyle can have wide-ranging benefits -- we’ll equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to get started growing your own food! Maintaining a food garden is a lost art, but previous generations often took full advantage of this practice to survive and thrive. Whether you live in a one-room studio or on a multi-acre estate, we can create strategies to plan and plant a food garden to fit your lifestyle, region, and specific growing conditions. Worried about your lack of expertise? We’ll walk you through each step of the process -- by the end of the course, your newly-developed green thumb will be the amazement of your neighbors, family, friends—and yourself!

Join WithLoveDC as they continue the USBG’s weekly community yoga class. Typically offered on-site at the USBG Conservatory or outdoor gardens, the Garden is supporting an online yoga class to continue the program for community health and well-being. During this online class, an instructor from WithLoveDC will guide you through a one-hour meditation and yoga practice via this link. Space is still first-come, first-serve, only the first 500 yogis to log in will be able to practice! Grab a mat and a quiet space. Make sure you have a water bottle close by and maybe light a candle and turn off the lights. Perhaps open the window or practice outside on your porch. We hope that by sharing this practice, separate but together, we can see still feel the love and support of this greater community in this time of uncertainty.

Photography is about more than cameras, lenses, apps, and technical jargon. Part observation, part discipline, part timing, and part luck, photography is the art of documenting one's unique visual perspective. It is, in a word, the art of seeing. This online course introduces beginner photographers to the exciting possibilities of a photographic practice. Students learn how to overcome challenges and begin to create powerful, personal images. They also explore their creative potential and develop an understanding of how to identify which camera is best suited for a particular photographic genre, be inspired about making and editing work, and, gain the tools and confidence to develop a disciplined process and explore one's creative potential. Open to All Skill Levels: Students ranging from beginner to experienced will be successful in classes.

It’s time to meet the sharks—virtually!  Experience a live virtual tour with the sharks that call Shedd home from the comfort of your home during this new, limited-time experience. Join the ocean's most dynamic and misunderstood predators — sharks — and other marine predators for brunch on this virtual feeding tour. Start with a close-up view of the Wild Reef exhibit, which brings you to a Philippine coral reef. Then venture behind the scenes to the animal care area to witness mealtime. You’ll learn how our aquarists prepare meals of restaurant-quality seafood. Discover how each shark and ray species in Wild Reef has been trained to respond to an aquarist’s signal for mealtime. During this 40-minute  virtual tour, get up close with sharks  while you observe a feeding session with our animal care team. Our experts will take you into the waters of the Wild Reef habitat. You will discover what it takes to feed and care for these animals and how that work supports these species in the wild. Whether you call Chicago home or live in another part of the world, we welcome you to join us and virtually meet the sharks. From family hangouts to stay-at-home dates to surprise gifts— experience the aquatic animal world from your home.  Each up-close visit will be unique, and we are not able to guarantee any specific animal during a virtual tour. This 40-minute virtual tour will take place on Zoom. All questions can be asked live through the chat function and responded to by our program host. 

This class provides personalized instruction from expert teaching artists in the beautiful and flexible medium of acrylic paint. Working from direct observation, you’ll learn to render what’s in front of you and create depth and luminosity as you explore the use of textures and different surfaces. Beginning with basic forms, the class progresses from still-lifes to the live model and covers perspective, value and tone as well as the basics of color theory. All levels; no experience necessary.

In this week's edition of Lunch Break Science, join Leakey Foundation grantee Ainash Childebayeva to learn about interactions between our genes and the environment. Childebayeva is a PhD candidate in Biological Anthropology and Toxicology at the University of Michigan. Her research is on the epigenomic signatures of adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia in the Peruvian Andes. Her research interests include human evolutionary genetics, human epigenetics, gene x environment interactions, and aDNA.

Gather with Leakey Foundation grantee Nicole Thompson and learn about the benefits of social connections during development in blue monkeys in Kakamega, Kenya.

Join Lucky Plush and University of Chicago Arts for this accessible dance class led by instructor Jennifer Edgcomb. BeMoved® is a dance experience designed to inspire anyone from first-time dancers to professionals to embrace dance as a lifelong means to health, joy, and fulfillment. See BeMovedDance.com to learn more.

One of 18 Reasons most popular classes, back for a return opportunity! Cinnamon buns are probably the most iconic sweet baked goods in Sweden. Almost any Swede knows how to bake them and does so on a regular basis to make sure they never run out. Johanna, who is a Swede living in Brooklyn, grew up having these buns every day after school. She thinks they are the best treat for fika, the Swedish coffee break, and would love to teach you how to make them with different flavors and shapes. Traditionally these buns are made with a cardamom flavored sweet dough, filled with different types of buttery fillings and shaped into classic rolls, knots, or festive braided lengths. In this class, you will learn how to shape the dough in three different shapes with three delicious fillings. On the Menu: Classic Cinnamon Rolls; Cardamom Knots; and Babka-Shaped Cinnamon Braid with Dark Chocolate.

Perfect class for beginners or the more experienced student who wishes to attain a greater mastery of their craft. This online class is dedicated to guiding students towards mastering pen, ink, brush and color washes and towards introducing students to the work of sepia masters like Da Vinci, the Expressionists and modernists like Raymond Pettibon. Develop a series of drawings (utilizing expressionistic contour, cross hatching, pointillism, color wash and dry brush) that utilizes the full potential of ink. There will be a demo of all materials and an expanded list available in the first day of class.

It’s Time to meet the sea lions—without leaving home! Experience a live virtual visit with the sea lions that call Shedd home from wherever you are in the world with our brand-new Virtual Sea Lion Encounter—Shedd Aquarium’s first-ever encounter with the sea lions! You may know California sea lions best for their loud vocalizations, and their ability to traverse both land and water. During this encounter you will meet one of the four rescued sea lions at Shedd—Biff, Cruz, Laguna, or Tanner—and learn how their rescue and rehabilitation gave them second chance at life. This 30-minute Virtual Sea Lion Encounter will take place on Zoom so you can enjoy the experience from your own home. During this 30-minute experience, you will meet one of the four rescued sea lions at Shedd up close and observe virtually in a session with our animal care team. Our animal care team will take you "behind the scenes" with the sea lions to learn more about the unique way they swim, their reverberating barks and much more! Whether you call Chicago home or live across the world, we welcome you to join us and virtually meet the sea lions. From family hangouts, to stay-at-home dates, to surprise gifts, experience the aquatic animal world from your home. Each up-close visit will be unique, and we are not able to guarantee any specific sea lion during an experience. This 30-minute virtual encounter will take place on Zoom so you can enjoy the experience from your own home. All questions can be asked live through the chat function and will be responded to by our program host.

Join Professor John Maynard and Peter FitzSimons for a pre-recorded live discussion from Apri, 2020, about the legend of Captian Cook. This is part of the Maritime Museum's virtual ocean talk series.

For centuries, science has been trying to prove that men's and women's brains are different. In her myth-smashing book, The Gendered Brain, Professor Gina Rippon dismantles this idea. Unpacking the dubious historical science, like 18th century experiments that saw empty skulls measured with bird seed, Rippon shows how early research fueled the persistent myth that female biology is inferior. She presents cutting edge neuroscience to detail how our brains are highly plastic, individualised, adaptable and full of potential. What if our behaviour is linked not to gender, but to life itself, to all we do and experience? Hosted by award-winning science journalist Natasha Mitchell. Recorded live from the Sydney Opera House in 2020.

Discover this medium that is surprisingly versatile and perfect for the home studio. This is one of our most popular Gather classes. No experience necessary, not a ton of supplies needed, and something to help you unleash a little creativity while learning some art-making skills. You’ll learn how to use colored pencils to create vibrant drawings from life with nuance, depth, and expression. Learn basic techniques for blending, shading, and more in this beginner-friendly course.

What is Surrealism? And what did it become in the hands of women artists? The Surrealist gallery is one of the most visited in the Museum. Surrealism connects our daily lives to the world of fantasy, dreams, and desire. While figures like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Max Ernst are often the names that come to mind, a host of intriguing women were associated with the Surrealist movement that emerged between the World Wars, including Claude Cahun, Frida Kahlo, Dora Maar, Meret Oppenheim, and Remedios Varo. These artists both championed Surrealist ideas and pushed against them to create work in which they could explore their unconscious mind and worldly identity. Join actor and writer Abbi Jacobson, star of Broad City and host of our A Piece of Work podcast, and Anne Umland, MoMA’s Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, as they explore Surrealism’s creative attraction for women artists and its revolutionary potential then and now. Live event from November, 2020.

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop led by Maggie Queeney. In this session, we explore the cento, a poem comprised entirely of lines and passages from other poems. The group will explore a wide variety of poems and conclude with a guided creative writing workshop, where participants will compose an original cento. Please note: we are offering several sessions of this program. Registration is required; space is limited. To register, email library@poetryfoundation.org with the date and time of the session you would like to attend. This program is for adult participants, aged 18 and up.

A year of social isolation and political upheaval has changed the way we think about theater. How did we get here? And how will the theater evolve in the wake of Covid-19? Join us for a free three-part digital series of conversations exploring the past, present, and future of theater during moments of social inflection, curated by The Public Theater. Moderated by Stellene Volandes, Editor in Chief of Town & Country and Editorial Director of Elle Decor, these conversations pose fundamental questions about the art form. What are the historical forces that created the modern theater, and how in turn has theater’s role in our society helped shape our culture at large? How has the last year upended the way artists work? Who will carry theater into the future? Part II: Present — Culture and Crisis. Featuring an esteemed panel of artists, administrators, and cultural funders, Culture and Crisis will shed light on the current state of the theater. What is the field grappling with? How has it grown in this time? And what are the stories we’ll be proud to tell to the next generation when they learn about this period in American theater?

GBH invites you to join fellow music fans for an in-depth conversation about the powerful impact and lasting relevance of WBCN-FM, Boston’s groundbreaking rock ‘n’ roll radio station. Between 1968 and 1974, this radical underground radio station amplified the social, political and cultural happenings of the time. WBCN staff were instrumental in conveying what was going on in society on the airwaves by reflecting the countercultural scene, militant anti-war activism, civil rights struggles and the emerging women’s and LGBTQ-liberation movements. Guests will have the opportunity to hear firsthand recollections from WBCN staff who worked at the station in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and interviewed a legendary list of who’s who in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, including The Who, The Velvet Underground, Muddy Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith and many more.

Marking Time: Indigenous Art from the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) looks at the persistence of images, signs or text painted or drawn on a range of surfaces in Indigenous Australia, from ancient times until now. The impulse to draw and make images and symbols is deeply embedded in Indigenous cultures throughout the world and is fundamental to the human experience. One of the first and most prolific forms of mark making, both figurative and non-figurative, has appeared across Australia on rock surfaces since the pre-historic era. Other forms of visual culture are ephemeral and comprise meaningful markings and designs made on the ground, the body and objects, for use in ceremonial contexts. The removal of such ritual markings from the body and the ground after ceremony, along with the loss of other more durable designs and images through natural processes, such as erosion, is compounded by other forms of loss through the socially fragmenting effects of colonisation. In response, Indigenous artists have found new ways of prolonging this visual language of images and signs, by reimagining it in new and more durable art forms, such as acrylic paintings, neons, sculptures and limited-edition prints. This exhibition reveals many nuances of mark making as an artistic practice in the Indigenous Australian context, with multiple aesthetic consequences and modes of practice. Join the museum director for a 5 part video tour through this important exhibition.

Dorothea Rockburne discusses her artistic practice with Jennifer Taback, professor of mathematics at Bowdoin College, and Joachim Homann, the Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings at the Harvard Art Museums. Taking her recent installation at Dia: Beacon as a point of departure, Rockburne makes the case for drawing as a form of intellectual inquiry. In conversation, she reflects on her long experience with the manipulation of artistic materials, her fascination with mathematical thinking, and the western art historical tradition. Born in Montreal, Rockburne first attended classes at the École des beaux-arts in Montreal and the Montreal Museum School of Fine Arts and Design before enrolling at the now legendary Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. Among her most influential teachers there was mathematician Max Dehn, who introduced students to mathematical thinking by relating it to nature, often teaching classes in the woods surrounding the school. Rockburne then moved to New York and has been exhibiting her work domestically, most notably in the Museum of Modern Art, and internationally since 1970.

Free online printmaking class designed for older adults (ages 65+) who are seeking to learn new skills and join a community of peers who also share this interest. Experiment with different printmaking techniques, engage in the process of learning, and contribute to the collaborative spirit of the class. With artist Marianne Sadowski. Join on your computer or tablet wherever you have internet. A Zoom link and art materials list will be provided. Tuesdays and Fridays for 5 weeks.

Slave traders are peripheral figures in most histories of American slavery. But these men—who trafficked and sold over half a million enslaved people from the Upper South to the Deep South—were essential to slavery’s expansion and fueled the growth and prosperity of the United States. In The Ledger and the Chain, historian Joshua D. Rothman recounts the forgotten story of America’s internal slave trade—and its role in the making of America. Moderating today’s program is Rachel Swarns.

Join us for an online conversation between artist Theaster Gates and Grammy Award‒winning musician Corinne Bailey Rae. The London-based singer appears as a key performer in Do you hear me calling? Mama Mamama or What Is Black Power? one of the featured works in the exhibition Future Histories: Theaster Gates and Cauleen Smith (Floor 7 through May 23). Gates will screen an excerpt from this piece during the program. Through artworks, exhibitions, and ongoing initiatives, Gates has honored the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC, 1942–2019) and its pioneering role in defining and promoting Black culture and achievement with its aspirational lifestyle magazines Ebony and Jet, among other editorial initiatives. Gates’s Do you hear me calling? Mama Mamama or What Is Black Power? (2018) pays homage to motherhood and the power of women by exploring the idea of the Black Madonna through reworking three decades of images drawn from the JPC archives. Making its U.S. debut at SFMOMA, this two-channel video installation interweaves scenes of performances by choirs, musicians, and singers, including Bailey Rae and the artist’s ensemble The Black Monks.

Invasion biology is the field of ecology and conservation biology that interacts with introduced and invasive species. Introduced species are biogeographically “non-native,” requiring anthropogenic or human-aided dispersal to cross geographic barriers, and those introduced populations that have undesirable economic, environmental, or public health effects are usually those labelled “invasive.” Invasion biology formed in the late 20th century in response to concerns about the conservation implications of some introduced species. The field has since faced criticisms from scholars in multiple fields for alleged xenophobia, fear-mongering, advocacy of controversial management and eradication campaigns, as well as some invasion biologists’ philosophy of nature, which, like romantic ideals of “wilderness,” seems to exclude humans. This presentation will clarify and evaluate competing ethical justifications of invasion biologists’ concern with introduced species, advocating a pluralistic view that attempts to balance the diverse values at stake in the study and management of invasive species. Speaker David M. Frank is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy and the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown. His research focuses on values and ethics in environmental sciences.

Join The New Republic for a livestream of our Salon book series featuring Louis Menand, author, and Laura Marsh, TNR literary editor, as they talk about The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War. The Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense—economic and political, artistic and personal. In The Free World, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar and critic Louis Menand tells the story of American culture in the pivotal years from the end of World War II to Vietnam and shows how changing economic, technological, and social forces put their mark on creations of the mind. How did elitism and an anti-totalitarian skepticism of passion and ideology give way to a new sensibility defined by freewheeling experimentation and loving the Beatles? How was the ideal of “freedom” applied to causes that ranged from anti-communism and civil rights to radical acts of self-creation via art and even crime? With the wit and insight familiar to readers of The Metaphysical Club and his New Yorker essays, Menand takes us inside Hannah Arendt’s Manhattan, the Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merce Cunningham and John Cage’s residencies at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, and the Memphis studio where Sam Phillips and Elvis Presley created a new music for the American teenager. He examines the post war vogue for French existentialism, structuralism and post-structuralism, the rise of abstract expressionism and pop art, Allen Ginsberg’s friendship with Lionel Trilling, James Baldwin’s transformation into a Civil Right spokesman, Susan Sontag’s challenges to the New York Intellectuals, the defeat of obscenity laws, and the rise of the New Hollywood. Stressing the rich flow of ideas across the Atlantic, he also shows how Europeans played a vital role in promoting and influencing American art and entertainment. By the end of the Vietnam era, the American government had lost the moral prestige it enjoyed at the end of the Second World War, but America’s once-despised culture had become respected and adored. With unprecedented verve and range, this book explains how that happened.

Over five weeks, Seton Hawkins and Victor Goines will walk you through the life and genius of John Coltrane, from some of his earliest musical moments through to his later ecstatic spiritual explorations in music! All classes will be conducted live, and are not archived for future viewing.

Jhumpa Lahiri—acclaimed author of Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, and Unaccustomed Earth—discusses her new novel, Whereabouts. Written in Italian and translated into English by the author, Whereabouts follows a woman wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties, as she wanders the parks, piazzas, coffee shops and museums of the unnamed Italian city she calls home. “A beautifully written portrait of a life in passage that captures the hopes, frustrations, and longings of solitude and remembrance,” writes Publishers Weekly. A copy of Whereabouts, mailed to your home, comes with your ticket purchase, courtesy of Posman Books.

Our dreams inspire an ever-expanding universe of creation — from comic books and movies to art and poetry. And in the right hands, they can even spark transformational change. What inspires us to dream big? To not only imagine a better world, but work to make it a reality? Join The Times’s Veronica Chambers, as she investigates the mysterious alchemy of imagination — through conversation, verse, art and song. See a reading from poet and university distinguished professor at Virginia Tech Nikki Giovanni. A performance from singer, actress and radio host Estelle. And a wide-ranging conversation with the director of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” Peter Ramsey and the author N. K. Jemisin — all woven together with original animations from Reyna Noriega. Then, sit in as The Times’s John Eligon talks with Brandon Dasent, Ashanti Scott and Thandiwe Abdullah — three bold young activists whose dreams of a more just and equitable society have inspired them to action.It’s the inaugural episode of our yearlong series “Black History, Continued.” You can explore more about the series, including articles, interactive experiences and more here. Come dream with us.

Jonny Sun is back with a collection of essays and other writings in his unique, funny, and heartfelt style. The wonderfully original author of Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too gives us Goodbye, Again (Harper Perennial), a collection of touching and hilarious personal essays, stories, poems — accompanied by his trademark illustrations — covering topics such as mental health, happiness, and what it means to belong. The pieces range from long meditations on topics like loneliness and being an outsider, to short humor pieces, conversations, and memorable one-liners. Jonny's honest writings about his struggles with feeling productive, as well as his difficulties with anxiety and depression, will connect deeply with his fans, as well as anyone attempting to create in our chaotic world. It also features a recipe for scrambled eggs that might make you cry. Sun will be joined in conversation by Samantha Irby, author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and Wow, No Thank You. Signed editions of Goodbye, Again are available while supplies last.

In this inspiring talk, Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, shows how he breathes new life into old discoveries and modernized the nearly 200-year-old museum dedicated to Egyptian art and culture. Previously recorded at the Getty Villa.

COVID-19 is exposing deep inequities in health systems worldwide. A COVID-19 vaccine promises to tame a pandemic that has sickened more than 35 million people globally, left millions without work, and cost national economies trillions. How do we ensure the vaccine development and distribution process is unhindered by domestic and international geopolitics? Join the Global Inclusive Growth Partnership (GIGP), an Aspen Institute collaboration with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and the Aspen Global Innovators Group for a conversation with: Kathleen Sebelius, Former US Secretary Health and Human Services; Mike Froman, Vice Chairman, Mastercard; Anita Zaidi, Director, Vaccine Development, Surveillance, and Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases Programs, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao, Managing Director, Resource Mobilisation, Private Sector Partnerships and Innovative Finance, GAVI. This conversation will be moderated by Elizabeth Cohen a senior medical correspondent for CNN's Health, Medical and Wellness unit, reporting breaking medical news and health consumer reporting on CNN and CNN.com.

For decades after its founding, the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the “united” states was actually a lie. By awakening northerners to the true nature of slavery, and by enraging southerners who demanded the return of their human “property,” fugitive slaves forced the nation to confront the truth about itself, and led inexorably to civil war. Andrew Delbanco’s masterful examination of the fugitive slave story illuminates what brought us to war with ourselves and the terrible legacies of slavery that are with us still. Andrew Delbanco (Fellow, 2013–14), Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University; President, The Teagle Foundation. This talk, live from Fall, 2020, can be enjoyed anytime.

Upon stepping into the lobby of the Athenæum, visitors are welcomed by two giant portraits depicting two giants of American history: US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall and statesman and orator Daniel Webster. Preeminent nineteenth-century portraitist Chester Harding, whose home and studio were next door to the Athenæum, completed both Grand Manner paintings. Join Docent Clive Martin as he introduces you to the artist and his subjects, and shares the story of how these impressive paintings came to be at the Athenæum. For thirty years Clive Martin worked as a lawyer just two blocks from the BA and never stepped inside. Now that he's retired and a BA docent, he can't tear himself away from the place. Clive loves nothing better than introducing visitors to the building's many pleasures, treasures, and oddities, and to the history of this unique Boston institution.

In this episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and Philippe Étienne discuss energy security, the European Union’s recovery from COVID-19, intra-EU relationships discuss energy security, the European Union's recovery from COVID-19, intra-EU relations, combating terrorism in West Africa and competitions between authoritarianism and democracy. Philippe Etienne is the Ambassador of France to the United States. He previously held numerous posts within the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, notably including Ambassador of France to Romania (2002-2005), Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs (2007-2009), Permanent Representative of France to the European Union (2009-2014), Ambassador of France to Germany (2014-2017) and most recently, Diplomatic Adviser to the President (2017-2019).

As efforts mount to return to "normal," COVID-19 immunity certification programs have been floated as a way to safely get people back to work, school, and social activities. Israel has implemented a "green pass" that restricts access to concerts, gyms, and other leisure events to those who have been vaccinated, New York State is piloting its digital "Excelsior Pass" at professional sports arenas, and the European Union, China, and other nations are considering implementing vaccine passports at their borders. Programs such as these could help reboot economies and protect public health. However, novel digital health platforms may put personal privacy at risk and entrench existing inequities. Join us on April 28 for a moderated discussion on the legal, ethical, and public health complexities of COVID-19 immunity certification.

In this program, Peter Garino of the Shakespeare Project of Chicago introduces you to Shakespeare’s most malevolent villains by way of the company’s new film, By Help of Devils. The film presents scenes from many of the Bard’s greatest plays, like Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and Richard III, in order to plumb the depths of Shakespearean villainy. Peter Garino is a founding member of the Shakespeare Project of Chicago and has served as its artistic director since June 2010. He most recently appeared as Polonius in the Project’s theatrical reading of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and as the Prince/Peter in Romeo and Juliet. He also directed Richard III in the Project’s 2019-2020 season. During the past season, he appeared as Marcus Andronicus in Titus Andronicus and as Helicanus in Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Peter attended the National Shakespeare Conservatory and holds an MFA in acting from Illinois State University and a BA in theatre arts from Hofstra University.

Looking for America brings people together from across the political spectrum and the country to explore what it means to be American in a deeply polarized society. Art and storytelling are the foundation for creating deliberative dialogue that sparks humanizing conversations aimed at building relationships that can transform society. Gather with others and Georgetown for an interactive conversation moderated by Philippa P.B. Hughes, Social Sculptor + Chief Creative Strategist at Curiosity Connects Us and the founder of Looking for America. We’ll hear from Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy and Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and Sherrill Roland, artist and founder of The Jumpsuit Project. Then join the dialogue. During this interactive program, participants will be briefly paired in randomly selected break-out-rooms to share what being an American means to them. Meet someone new and broaden your worldview in this humanizing virtual experience.

Gather with ICP and Aperture online for a conversation between photographer Susan Meiselas and ICP’s Managing Director of Programs David Campany on Meiselas’s new Aperture publication, Eyes Open: 23 Photography Projects for Curious Kids. How do we lead others to see and be inspired by the photographic process? Campany and Meiselas will discuss the book which promotes new ways of seeing and exploring photography for kids, as well as the practice of teaching photography. They will also re-visit Meiselas’s 1974 book, Learn to See: A Sourcebook of Photography Projects by Students and Teachers, to examine the ways in which teaching photography has evolved and continued to inspire new generations of imagemakers over the last nearly fifty years.

Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins will join healthcare expert Vivian Riefberg, recently appointed the David C. Walentas Jefferson Scholars Foundation Professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, for a candid discussion about the challenges facing today’s global healthcare industry. Dr. Francis Collins currently serves as the director of the National Institutes of Health, where he has worked under three administrations. He is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book.

Eric Mourlot, the owner of Galerie Mourlot and Mourlot Editions, will discuss the history behind Galerie Mourlot as well as its groundbreaking collaborations with some of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Having taken over the family print shop in 1920 Fernand Mourlot, Eric’s grandfather, fostered a resurgence of lithography, revealing it as a new avenue for expression and a new realm of possibilities for the likes of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and Alberto Giacometti, among others. This legacy was continued by his son Jacques Mourlot, Eric’s father, who expanded the Galerie to New York, collaborating with artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, and Lee Krasner. Since opening Galerie Mourlot in New York in 2005, Eric Mourlot has continued his family’s legacy, providing a platform on which artists create history.

The Harvard Art Museums collections have played an important role in the popular undergraduate course Stories from the End of the World, taught by Harvard Divinity School professor Giovanni Bazzana. This fascinating course, which is part of the Harvard College Program in General Education, explores why humans have always imagined the end of their worlds. In this conversation, Professor Bazzana and Jen Thum of the Harvard Art Museums will discuss their recent online collaboration for the course and what students learned about artists’ apocalyptic inspirations over time.

Take a look at the COVID-19 pandemic through the eyes of four leading science journalists who covered the pandemic in the U.S. and around the world. They'll talk about the challenges of writing about ever-changing vaccine developments and variants; of breaking down complex topics like viral spread and making the public aware of ever-changing health and safety precautions. They'll discuss how they handled reporting on forecasts, dealt with misinformation and what the future might bring for all of us. Moderated by Faye Flam, Bloomberg Opinion columnist and host of the podcast "Follow the Science,” panelists will include: Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times reporter focused on science and global health; Jon Cohen, staff writer with Science; Jason Beaubien, global health and development correspondent, NPR. The discussion will be followed by questions from the audience.

In Jazz 101, our instructors will guide you through the history and development of various jazz styles. Students will develop their ears to hear the many details and intricacies that make this music so endlessly fascinating. Instructor and Swing University curator Seton Hawkins will provide your introduction to jazz; no musical knowledge is required. All classes will be conducted live, and are not archived for future viewing. Each class is $10, or you may purchase an all-access pass for $200 which gives you access to all Swing U classes this term--classes every day! This week: The Birth of Jazz: We say that Jazz was born in New Orleans, but why? What was special about that city, and the people in it? During this class, we will explore the cultural make-up, the unique diversity, and the interplay of cultures you find in New Orleans. We’ll also listen to some of the earliest musical styles to come out of there, and we’ll give you insight into what the very earliest forms of Jazz might have sounded like.

Please join us for a moderated conversation with experts from UC Berkeley to discuss the discoveries, challenges, and implications of exploring our solar system. The recent trio of spacecraft arriving at Mars from the US, China, and the UAE thrust the “Red Planet” into the public imagination once again. The landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover reignited an exuberance for planetary exploration in millions around the world. Could life have existed on Mars? What’ve we learned from previous missions? How will this research impact science for generations to come? You’re invited to hear our experts share experiences with space exploration and Mars science, providing us with insights into what lies ahead. Speakers: Manar Al Asad, Graduate Student, Earth & Planetary Science; Bill Dietrich, Professor, Earth & Planetary Science; Rob Lillis, Associate Director, Space Sciences Lab; and David Shuster, Professor, Earth & Planetary Science. Free and open to all. No advance registration required.

Have you ever had a glimmer of an idea for a new company, project or product but were convinced you didn’t have the tools to get started? Ellen Marie Bennett, CEO of Hedley & Bennett, may have a concise but powerful piece of advice for you: “You got this! Dream first, details later.” At 24, Bennett was a line cook at Providence, a two Michelin-starred Los Angeles restaurant. As she explored the culinary world and sharpened her skills, she also noticed the poorly designed aprons and shirts kitchen staff were required to wear. She decided to use her experience as a chef (in other words, not as a manufacturer but as a person who actually wore these uniforms) and leveraged this into a multi-million dollar apparel company. Her premium chef aprons and kitchen gear are worn by several of the best chefs and home cooks around the world. Gather with Bennett at INFORUM and in conversation with author and Character Lab CEO Angela Duckworth, to learn how “fake it ‘till you make it” is actually a practical and effective business strategy, and how making your dreams a reality is as simple as just going for it.

Time to fall in love with Spring again. We will take all of the best produce, whatever you can get your hands on: peas, artichokes, asparagus, morels, ramps, green garlic. Cook them lightly, then nestle them in a light dill and feta cheese sauce, wrapped in shatter-crisp sheets of phyllo. Golden brown perfection, with a bright charred scallion lemon sauce alongside. And, of course, more celebrations: Spring Berry Fizz Cocktails! This class menu includes: Spring Vegetable Strudel; Charred Scallion Lemon Sauce; and Spring Berry Fizz Cocktail. This live, interactive, and hands-on class takes place virtually over Zoom. Ingredient and equipment lists available on registration page.

Mars is hot right now, despite its sub-freezing temperatures. With multiple countries sending spacecraft to the Red Planet this year, we’ll take a look at missions past and future, their breakthroughs and challenges, and what we hope to find when we get there.

It’s hard to remember what we used to cook before Yotam Ottolenghi burst into our culinary consciousness. From his introduction of bold new flavours and ingredients, to his consistent foregrounding of vegetables in his meals, Ottolenghi’s books continue to excite and inspire food-lovers everywhere, from his home base in London. Spend an hour with Yotam and Adam Liaw, as they discuss what makes a recipe simple, cooking for fussy children and how Ottolenghi's books saved the humble cauliflower. As a bonus, check out five of the best isolation cooking receipes from Yotam picked by the staff of the Sydney Opera House: https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/digital/articles/food/five-best-yotam-ottolenghi-recipes-for-isolation.html

Have you marveled at how New Yorker cartoon captions are so clever and so...just perfect? Have you ever tried your hand at the weekly cartoon caption contest? Take a quick tutorial from two actors that will spark some creative energy to try again! Ellie Kemper and Daniel Radcliffe, stars of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend,” team up for The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest.

Rediscovered in recent years, this BBC documentary is as extraordinary as its provocative subject matter — the dramatic story of the building of the Sydney Opera House, culminating in Utzon’s departure from the project. Containing a new prologue called ‘The Dream of Perfection’, it tells the fascinating story of the lost film and brings the story up-to- date, featuring interviews with Sir David Attenborough, architect Richard le Plaistrier, plus many others. Courtesy of the Sydney Opera House--from our house to yours--stream this film anytime from the comfort of your home.

New York-based artist Jen Mazza takes a closer look at drawings from the Getty Museum's collection with assistant curator Edina Adam, inviting viewers to join them on an exploratory journey. In this conversation, they examine Wooded Landscape, an 18th-century work by Dutch artist Paulus van Liender, and Mazza reflects on how her work engages with museum collections. Free with advance registration.

Gather with us for the next conversation in our First Ladies Program Series. Katherine Jellison—Professor of History at Ohio University and television/radio commentator on first ladies—will discuss how most first ladies follow the four traditional archetypes: celebrity, controversial, reluctant, or political partner. Jellison’s presentation will highlight Dolley Madison, Lucy Hayes, and Betty Ford, among others. Foundation Executive Director Patrick Madden will lead the audience Q&A from Martha to Melania following her presentation.

Gather with Cary Liu, Nancy and Peter Lee Curator of Asian Art, as he discusses the acquisition of two important tomb artifacts dating from the Warring States period (ca. 470–221 B.C.). One is a rare bronze lamp made with different colored alloys that may have guided the soul to the afterlife. The other is a uniquely decorated eared cup that may have been used to provide sustenance to the deceased.

From the AIDS crisis to the current coronavirus pandemic, artist and filmmaker Michelle Handelman talks about her work in the context of survival and longing through the power of transgression. MICHELLE HANDELMAN uses video, live performance and photography to make confrontational works that that push against the boundaries of gender, race and sexuality. Raised during the late 1960s, Handelman split her time between Chicago, where her mother was a fixture in the art world, and Los Angeles, where her father was a player in the sex industry. Her art developed through great struggle and loss throughout the era of the AIDS crisis and over the years Handelman has voraciously traversed all these worlds, developing a body of work that investigates ways of looking at the forbidden and revealing the dark, subconscious layers of outsider agency.

In her new memoir, Quiara Alegría Hudes the acclaimed playwright tells her story of coming of age against the backdrop of an ailing Philadelphia barrio, with her sprawling Puerto Rican family as a collective muse. She was awed by her aunts and uncles and cousins, but haunted by the secrets of the family and the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio—the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish. Quiara Alegría Hudes is a writer, wife, mother of two, barrio feminist, and native of West Philly, USA. Her plays and musicals have been performed around the world, including the Broadway hit "In the Heights" and the Pulitzer Prize–winning drama "Water by the Spoonful." Hudes will be joined by journalist Maria Hinojosa, whose work has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape in America and abroad. Maria Hinojosa is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and author of “Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America.” She is also anchor and Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning show Latino USA, distributed by PRX and co-host of Futuro Media’s award-winning political podcast, “In The Thick.”

Learn about our Land Acknowledgment and reimagined American Art galleries, which open with an introduction to Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape (Delaware) people—Brooklyn’s original inhabitants. Join Nancy Rosoff, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator, Arts of the Americas, and Joe Baker, co-founder and Executive Director of the Lenape Center, for a closer look at these projects and their role in our ongoing partnership with Lenape and Delaware leaders. This program is free to stream on Facebook Live. Or, pay what you wish to join us on Zoom and participate in a Q&A with the speaker after the talks. Your contribution supports our dynamic public programs and events.

Climate change threatens the very existence of many small island nations. Sea-level rise, weather extremes and coral reef destruction caused by warming waters have driven untold destruction and outmigration, with some communities fleeing—literally—to higher ground. Fighting for their collective survival, three small Pacific Island nations and two U.S. territories spanning over 2 million square miles of ocean launched the Micronesia Challenge in the mid-2000s to protect critical land and marine ecosystems by 2020—reducing human impact that imperils reefs, coastlines and mountains. A strategic partner since the Challenge’s founding, The Nature Conservancy is working across Micronesia as this initiative launches bold new 2030 targets for people and nature.

Poets Victoria Chang (“Obit”) and Brenda Shaughnessy (“The Octopus Museum”) discuss their poetry collections, which address issues of loss, fear and the future of the planet. A National Poetry Month event. This is part of National Book Festival Presents, a year-round series that features high-caliber authors, their books and corresponding Library treasures.

In honor of Robert Rosenblum (1927–2006), former Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Henry Ittleson Jr. Professor of Modern European Art at New York University, the Guggenheim is honored to host the artist Pat Steir in conversation with fellow artist Mickalene Thomas, for its Tenth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture. The program is free and will be livestreamed on the Guggenheim’s YouTube channel. Register to receive a reminder to tune in. PAT STEIR is a revered artist whose career spans over five decades, and was among the first wave of women artists to gain prominence in the New York art world with her inclusion in the exhibition Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in 1964. Known for her paintings that combine random pours with rigorously controlled brushwork, Steir’s work explores the poetic repercussions of gravity and nonintervention and the tangential coincidence with what Rosenblum referred to as the “abstract sublime.” Steir has had numerous solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including Pat Steir: Color Wheel, her largest painting installation to date, which opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., in October 2019. Steir’s work is held in numerous collections worldwide, including Musée du Louvre, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Tate Gallery, London; and the Guggenheim Museum, among others. She has been the recipient of several awards including two NEA grants, as well as a Guggenheim fellowship in 1982, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in 1991. MICKALENE THOMAS is a distinguished, New York–based visual artist, filmmaker, and curator who works in various mediums. She is a recipient of the Yale School of Art Presidential Fellowship in Fine Arts (2020), Pauli Murray College Associate Fellow at Yale University (2020), Meyerhoff-Becker Biennial Commission at Baltimore Museum of Art (2019), United States Artists Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow (2015), and is an alumnus of the Studio Museum in Harlem Artist-in-Residency program (2003) and the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program in Giverny (2011). Thomas is a recipient of many awards and grants, among them are the Bronx Museum of the Arts Pathmakers Award (2019), Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2013), Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award (2012), Timerhi Award for Leadership in the Arts (2010), Joan Mitchell Grant (2009), Pratt Institute Alumni Achievement Award (2009), and the Rema Hort Mann Grant (2007). She has been honored by a number of institutions and organizations including the Aperture Foundation, SFMoMA, MoMA PS1, and the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum. Thomas has exhibited at prestigious institutions across North America, including the Brooklyn Museum; MoMA PS1, Queens; Seattle Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Baltimore Museum of Art; Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; and Aspen Art Museum. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Newark Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Hara Museum of Art, Rubell Museum, and Studio Museum in Harlem, among other public and private institutions and collections. She is the co-founder of the Pratt>FORWARD Artist in the Market incubator for postgraduate students, and serves on the Board of the Trustees for the Brooklyn Museum and MoMA PS1. She received her MFA from Yale University, New Haven, and her BFA from Pratt Institute.

One of America’s foremost reporters on the Supreme Court, Nina Totenberg, breaks down the latest Court developments into manageable pieces in order to discuss their impact. With an insider’s knowledge, she will lead the audience through an animated discussion of the current issues affecting our nation today, answer questions concerning the most pressing issues in Washington, and offer predictions for what’s to come. Nina Totenberg shines a light on the inner workings of our nation's highest court and helps audiences understand the impact of headline-making judicial cases on America’s future. One of the country’s most respected journalists and a doyenne of the Supreme Court, Nina is National Public Radio’s award-winning legal affairs correspondent. With more than 40 years’ experience at NPR, her reports are regularly featured on NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. Nina has won every major journalism award in broadcasting and holds the distinction of being the first radio journalist to have won the National Press Foundation’s “Broadcaster of the Year” award. Referred to as “the crème de la crème” of NPR by Newsweek, Nina shares her seasoned reflections on the Supreme Court, top legal issues affecting everyday Americans, and the important cases being considered by the court. In-depth and wildly thought-provoking, her deep experience and nuanced perspective provides audiences insight into today’s judicial headlines like no one else can.

Galerie d’Orsay is unveiling its Spring 2021 exhibition, featuring new paintings by Bruno & Natasha Zupan! Gather with Co-Director Kristine Feeks Hammond in a virtual Zoom conversation with artist Bruno Zupan as he discusses the places that inspire him, from Paris to Mallorca to right here in Boston. Bring your questions for a Q&A with Bruno. Plus, hear a special message from Natasha Zupan—fellow artist, and Bruno’s daughter. See why April in Boston means more than Duck Boats and walks in the Public Garden! Please email info@galerie-dorsay.com to RSVP to Virtual Artist Talk with Bruno Zupan.

Live From Dizzy’s welcomes club favorites & emerging artists back to the Dizzy's Club stage. Join us from the comfort of your own home as we bring stunning New York views and the live jazz club experience to your living room. Additionally, each live performance will include an artist interview with Dizzy’s Club manager Roland Chassagne. This week: Dizzy's Club is excited to present rising star pianist Sean Mason as part of our virtual Live From Dizzy's Series and Carnegie Hall's Voices of Hope Festival. Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Mason now resides in New York City where he's worked regularly as a bandleader and sideman. Mason is a fantastic young musician who was featured in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s larger venues, Rose Theater and The Appel Room, as a part of Ellington Through the Ages with Wynton Marsalis and Danny Barker: A New Orleans Life in Jazz alongside a collective of elite New Orleans musicians. Joining him is his regular working trio with bassist Butler Knowles and drummer Malcolm Charles as well as guest vocalist Charles Turner. The Trio will perform Mason's original work The Southern Suite.

Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of The Flamethrowers, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Top Ten Book of 2013; Telex from Cuba, a finalist for the National Book Award; and, most recently, The Mars Room, which was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Award, winner of the Prix Médicis, selected by the National Book Foundation for its “Literature for Justice” award, and a winner of the California Book Award. She has received grants and prizes from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. Heidi Julavits is the founding editor of Believer magazine, and the author of four novels, including The Vanishers and The Uses of Enchantment. Her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope All-Story and elsewhere. She is a professor of creative writing at Columbia University.

Building resilient communities requires us to look at complex interactions between the built and natural environments we inhabit and our vulnerabilities within them. But what should we know about less visible barriers to resilience? Certain chemicals found in everyday products we use and wear have impacts on our bodies, and can compound stressors such as COVID-19 and climate-related events. Join us in conversation with Meredith Williams, Director, California Department of Toxic Substances Control and Debbie Raphael, Director, San Francisco Department of the Environment to learn about toxic “forever” chemicals and what we can do about them at both the individual and system levels.

Explore the vast field of geology and just a few of the ways the ground beneath our feet affects our lives—and vice versa. Hear from researchers studying how human activities impact the Earth’s structure and consider how geologic features are linked to the culture of local communities.

From Michelle Zauner — the indie rock star of Japanese Breakfast fame and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book — comes an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In Crying in H Mart (Knopf), Zauner’s exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, she proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band — and meeting the man who would become her husband — her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was 25, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Zauner will be joined in conversation by Ben Gibbard, lead vocalist and guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie.

For centuries, the importance of civility to the health of republics has been widely recognized. Peaceful resolution of conflicts, open debate, and the nurturing of an engaged citizenry are essential to maintaining governments in which power is held by the people. And yet, civility remains elusive. The scholars in this series help us think about ways of encouraging, preserving, and restoring civility—through political and creative expression, in the courts, on the page, and on the screen—from the classical period to the modern era. This session: A distinguished classics scholar as well as an accomplished academic administrator, Joy Connolly argues in her most recent book, The Life of Roman Republicanism that “Cicero, Sallust, and Horace inspire fresh thinking about central concerns of contemporary political thought and action” including the role conflict plays in the political community, the conditions needed to promote an equal and just society, citizens’ interdependence on one another for senses of selfhood, and the uses and dangers of self-sovereignty and fantasy.

In 1967, San Francisco made history when, as a result of the student strike at San Francisco State University, the country’s first ethnic studies department was born. Over the years, community advocates have continued to find inadequacies in educational programs for students, citing a lack of inclusion of instructional materials for the teaching of history and culture regarding diverse population demographics. They also believe the learning and understanding of diverse cultures will help foster understanding and mutual respect between and among people from different ethnic backgrounds. Gather with us for an in-depth discussion with panelists who were some of the driving forces in the ethnic studies movement. Learn how and why they have devoted their efforts to advocate for the programs and hear their visions about how ethnic studies can shape our society’s future.

How is the kitchen a space of community and conflict, joy and survival? Join architect Germane Barnes, culinary historian Michael Twitty, and food scholar Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson for a conversation about ritual, labor, gender, and food through an exploration of the social space of the kitchen. This program takes place in conjunction with the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. This event is free, open to all, and takes place over Zoom meeting.

One of the world’s greatest scholars on Louis Armstrong, Ricky Riccardi, will guide you through the music of Louis Armstrong’s big band years, from 1929 through to 1947. Drawing from Riccardi’s recently released book Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, this class will take you on a thrilling journey through this amazing period of Armstrong’s career.

We have been in the churn of uncertainty and chaos for a year now. How do we continue to feel grounded while writing in this time? How can gratitude, for instance, pivot and nourish our poems, however confined we find ourselves within our physical spaces? In this generative workshop, we’ll read relevant works by Ross Gay and Aracelis Girmay, among others, and scribe the big and small blessings we miss to see around us. We will create and share poems that dive deep into thankfulness. There will be prompts, share time, and by the end folks will have written new drafts they can later return to.

After the success and fun we had in January 2021 with "Play with Your Greens," instructor Camila Loew's excited to cook more vegetables with students! To Camila, spring is perhaps the best season for vegetables, with leeks! peas! artichokes! Come play with us and eat deliciously, to boot. This class menu includes: Leek and Green Herb Soup—A delicious and comforting recipe, which can be flexible with herbs and be served hot or chilled. A variety of garnishes makes the soup fun and personal; Beet, Avocado and Fresh Pea Salad—A few of Camila's favorite ingredients in a salad that packs in textures, flavors, and colors; and Artichoke Chips with Rosemary Saffron Mayo—Learn how to prepare artichokes with a dish featured in Camila's cookbook.

Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim is lauded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater. A living link to the “Golden Age of Musical Theater,” he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II, and has simultaneously continued that tradition while expanding and reinventing it. He is lionized as few in his discipline have ever been: there is a Sondheim Society; a magazine, theaters, and awards have been named after him; there are countless productions, recordings, and books; and his songs are a staple of cabaret, stage, and universities worldwide. Focusing on four landmark musicals—Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park with George—we will dig into the music, the lyrics, the structure, the mechanics of what makes these musicals so fantastic and important, and why Sondheim deserves the praise and position in our culture.

Did you ever wonder what happened in Europe after the Sun King Louis XIV died? In this class, we will explore how the European political, social & cultural landscape changes after the demise of absolute monarchs. Starting with Rococo & Naturalism, we will discuss how a new understanding of human nature leads to the birth of Neo-Classicism. We will also focus on Romanticism, which puts its emphasis on the emotional experience of the world around us. Then, Realism will lead the way to experiencing the world in a highly subjective fashion. And lastly, we will transition to our final artistic movement discussed in this class, Impressionism.

This six-week course is perfect for anyone just getting started on their path to being a writer. Students work in small breakout sessions with experienced writers and teachers, then attend a lecture by various guest speakers with expertise in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, or screenwriting. Short assignments are workshopped in the weekly breakout sessions. The goal of the course is to expose new writers to a variety of types of writing while getting their creative juices flowing. At the end of the quarter, students feel more confident about their skills and are prepared for further study of writing.

Ballet Basics is designed to give you all the information you need to better appreciate and enjoy SF Ballet. These 2-hour seminars will give participants a foundation in the history and practices of the art form. Watch a professional dancer take a ballet barre, hear from an artist, and learn about the history of classical ballet.

Join Met curator Alisa LaGamma for a conversation with Manthia Diawara, a writer, filmmaker, and leading scholar of the African diaspora, presented in conjunction with the exhibition Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara. Explore the tensions between West Africa's traditions and modernity as LaGamma and Diawara draw from the exhibition and from one of Diawara's signature texts, In Search of Africa, which was shaped by his formative experiences in Guinea, Mali, and Senegal.

This class explores the rich visual culture that characterized the golden age of the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. During this period, the small and relatively new nation emerged as a global economic powerhouse, thanks to its naval strength and unrivaled prowess in shipping and trade. The artworks of Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, and others capture the fascinating and at times contradictory nature of the changes in Dutch society and culture. Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.

Ella Fitzgerald, known as, the "First Lady of Song," could have been another police-blotter story. Homeless, at fifteen, living on the streets of Harlem, through sheer drive and ambition, she broke through, becoming one of the most admired entertainers of the twentieth century. She had a career that spanned five decades: the first African American Grammy Award winner, performer before presidents, kings and queens around the world. We'll take a close look at Ella Fitzgerald, the artist and the person. Sammy Davis Jr., literally, grew up on stage, making his professional debut at age four. He could dance, sing, act, play multiple musical instruments and mimic. There may never be another performer the equal Sammy Davis Jr. But who was Sammy? We'll take a close look at a very complex personality, who may never have discovered; "What Makes Sammy Run?" Lena Horne, was often labeled: "the Black Goddess." She was a lot more. Lena was the first Black performer to ink an extended contract with a major motion picture company Her contract with MGM was for seven years. It stated that she would not play the role of a servant. Most Black actors, in the 40s, played the role of maids and butlers. Lena Horne became one of the major supper club attractions in America. She was an activist, Blacklisted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee for Communist affiliations. She survived losing her son, father and husband, all within one year, making one of the most dramatic come-backs in the history of show business. About instructor Sonny Buxton: Prof. Buxton’s lifelong passion has been music and documentary filmmaking. He has worked as a professional musician, with the likes of Peggy Lee, Billy Eckstine, and Bill Strayhorn. He has produced shows ranging in scope from the Motown Allstars to B. B. King, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis. He traveled with Ellington producing an award‐winning audio documentary. A longtime jazz club/restaurateur in Seattle and SF, he has also had a long career in broadcasting working for KGO as a newsman, a talk show host, and an executive producer. He is a Northern California Emmy Awardee. He hosts “Saturday Mid‐Day Jazz” on KCSM. Working as a social psychologist/football player have been parts of his life now being put into Memoirs of a Jazz Junkie: My First Two Hundred Years.

The global pandemic has forced many to reevaluate the future of our economy and the way we work. Will urban dwellers migrate to more affordable suburban regions? Will we ever return to traditional offices full-time? Will entrepreneurs use this change in routine to discover the next big thing? What jobs will offer a path to opportunity? The biggest recession in almost 100 years has changed the economic landscape, and not everyone has the luxury of exploring these big questions. Many workers have been left without a financial safety net or the skills needed to succeed in a virtual economy. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and leaders in Washington can’t agree on substantive solutions. The path to the new economy is being charted today. The Atlantic will explore what the future might hold for Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum.

In the narrative of American culture, organized sports is valued for its ability to build character. This continues to be true as to recreational participation. However, the greater emphasis in sports today is on passive viewing, and a growing trend of legal sports gambling that eliminates rooting interest in favor of the betting line. Nourished principally by television revenues and high-ticket prices, organized sport has evolved into a large business enterprise. Inevitably the original values of character development and amateurism have become subordinated to the goals of a large, profitable, and expensive industry. What does this suggest for the future of sports in our culture? The blurring of active sports participation with passive viewing entertainment has evoked interesting tests of societal values. The design of this course will address the issues of shifting values in sports, some favorable and some negative. Among topics we will discuss are the high levels of compensation for professional athletes, the evolving financial model of intercollegiate sports, long-term medical risks for players associated with repetitive trauma, rights of athletes with disabilities, the increased opportunity for women and trans to participate in competitive sport, and the influence of legalized gambling on the future of the game. To a degree this requires discussion of legal issues; however, the relevant law will be approached at a comprehensible level. The course will incorporate current events into the curriculum as they inevitably arise. About your instructor, Roy Eisenhardt: Roy Eisenhardt was a practicing attorney, President of the Oakland Athletics, and a Board Member of the Women’s Tennis Association. He also served as Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences, and Interim President of the San Francisco Art Institute. He currently teaches legal courses in sports law at Berkeley Law, U.C. Berkeley, and at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Back by popular demand! Adam Gopnik returns to 92Y for a trio of lectures on Dickens, Trollope and on walking in New York. In his first two lectures, Gopnik explore the relation between the radical and liberal imaginations, with high Victorian fiction seen as a distant mirror of our own troubling time and the back and forth between the prophetic, poetic imagination (Dickens) and the pragmatic, prose imagination (Trollope) as central objects. On Dickens, he writes: “what Dickens is really saying is: We live in a society of abundance and injustice, and those of us who are lucky enough to partake in the abundance have to use our good fortune to help the unjustly treated. Dickens also says we have to enjoy it.” “For Trollope,” he adds, “the boat goes in only one direction, and that is toward greater equality, greater democracy—equality of fortune and circumstance. Trollope was not a radical. Yet he was unquestioningly a liberal of an ideologically rigorous kind—exactly what we mean by a ‘progressive.’” Gopnik urges students to read as much of Dickens' Bleak House and A Christmas Carol, and as much of Trollope's Phineas Finn and Barchester Towers, as they can manage. For his third lecture, Gopnik answers the question, “is there a peculiarly New York addition to the meanings of walking?” He writes: “in New York, walking, even without companions, can still be an expression of companionship, of expansive connection; a happy opening out to an enlarged civic self rather than a narrowing down to a contemplative inner one; a way of scooting toward the American Over-Soul, in sneakers.” Schedule: Tue, May 4: On Dickens; Tue, May 11: On Trollope; and Tue, May 25: On Walking New York. (Note, while each talk can be purchased separately, subscribing for all three results in a $15 savings).

People from BIPOC communities face a myriad of challenges in the entertainment industry, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. From on-screen talent and actors to production crews, publicity teams, talent management, writing and film criticism, marginalized groups often remain underrepresented in all aspects of an industry that has major influence on American culture. Despite evidence that shows addressing these racial inequities could reap an additional $10 billion in annual revenue, efforts by the industry to create parity continue to be inadequate. Gather with a panel of experts on race in Hollywood at INFORUM, where they will discuss the harsh realities that most people of color face in entertainment, as well as steps toward industry-wide changes meant to increase representation and provide space for a new and diverse generation of creatives.

This class will place Édouard Manet’s influential paintings, such as Olympia, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, within the context of modern Paris, the French Empire, and the city’s increasingly global reputation in the late 19th century. We will examine both the formal and the cultural impact of Manet’s art and analyze prominent Parisian sites associated with the rise of modernity—boulevards, parks, shopping arcades, department stores (like the Bon Marché), sewers, catacombs, and World’s Fair grounds—through the study of Manet’s works and those of his colleagues. Students will come away understanding why Paris is so often called the birthplace of modernist painting. Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.

Join educator Joseph Field for a four-part course highlighting the powerful influence and creative achievements of women in the art world. Explore the Guggenheim’s collection and history which feature and celebrate a number of artists, collectors, and curators who made immense contributions to art of the 20th century, despite gender discrimination. This course will challenge long-established narratives and critically rethink one of the most important centuries in art history. Over four sessions, participants will learn about some of the lesser-known but crucial figures of the period, including Hilla Rebay, Anni Albers, and Lucia Moholy, who greatly influenced, or even had their work stolen by, their male counterparts. This course will utilize close looking, structured interpretation, and shared discovery to explore the session’s themes. Class discussion is highly valued and registrants are encouraged to contribute comments and reflections throughout the live sessions. Optional readings and video content will be offered between sessions. All course sessions will be led virtually through Zoom. A Zoom link and password will be emailed ahead of the course. Weekly topics for the course: May 4: Woman of the 20th Century; May 11: Temple for the Spirit; May 18: Erasure; May 25: Innovation and Influence.

Financial interests distort the truths of evidence-based medicine, says Dr. Leemon B. McHenry. By revealing previously confidential documents released in litigation, Dr. McHenry exposes the role that pharmaceutical marketing has in the construction of medical literature, conference presentations and continuing medical education. The marketing spin is designed to be indistinguishable from the genuine science, he says, thus seriously misleading our medical professionals and the public. Leemon B. McHenry, Ph.D. specializes in medical ethics and philosophy of science. He is a legal research consultant, and is a professor emeritus at California State University in Northridge. He is the co-author of The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine: Exposing the Crisis of Credibility in Clinical Research.

Historian Amanda Podany explores cuneiform records and archaeological finds to illuminate the lives of three Mesopotamians who lived between 2300 and 1700 BC. She tells fascinating tales of Enheduanna, a high priestess and poet, and the world's first known author; Pagirum, a scribe who learned to write cuneiform texts in school and became a trusted member of his community; and Hammurabi, king of Babylon. Knowledge about their concerns and beliefs was lost for millennia; their lives only became known again when the documents written during their lifetimes were found, translated, and analyzed. This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins. Amanda Podany is a professor of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she has taught since 1990. She received her PhD in Ancient Near Eastern History from UCLA in 1988. She has published five books and numerous articles in the field of ancient Near Eastern history, including on chronology, scribal tradition, international relations in the ancient Near East, and ancient legal practices. In 2013, Podany was the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her research.

Best-selling author Marisa Silver discusses her new novel about two young girls, their friendship, and the moment that shatters their lives. The Mysteries book coverGrowing up in St. Louis in 1973, seven-year-olds Miggy Brenneman and Ellen are developing their first strong bond outside their families, as their parents navigate feminism, postpartum depression, and economic and marital instability. When tragedy strikes, Miggy is forced to understand her world in a new way, her future radically transformed, as the adults grapple with questions of fate and personal responsibility. The Mysteries is an intimate exploration of childhood, friendship, and the reckoning with seemingly unanswerable questions at all ages. Marisa Silver researched and wrote The Mysteries during her 2018–2019 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She discusses her book with award-winning author Jennifer Egan.

A sequel to the critically acclaimed Rat Girl, Kristin Hersh’s beautifully written new memoir takes readers on an emotional journey through the author's life as she reflects on 30 years of music and motherhood. Doony, Ryder, Wyatt, Bodhi. The names of Hersh’s sons are the only ones included in her new book, Seeing Sideways: A Memoir of Music and Motherhood (University of Texas Press). As it unfolds and her sons’ voices rise from its pages, it becomes clear why: these names tell the story of her life. This story begins in 1990, when Hersh is the leader of the indie rock group Throwing Muses, touring steadily, and the mother of a young son, Doony. The chapters that follow reveal a woman and mother whose life and career grow and change with each of her sons: the story of a custody battle for Doony is told alongside that of Hersh’s struggles with her record company and the resulting PTSD; the tale of breaking free from her record label stands in counterpoint to her recounting of her pregnancy with Ryder; a period of writer’s block coincides with the development of Wyatt as an artist and the family’s loss of their home; and finally, soon after Bodhi’s arrival, Hersh and her boys face crises from which only strange angels can save them. Punctuated with her own song lyrics, Seeing Sideways is a memoir about a life strange enough to be fiction, but so raw and moving that it can only be real. Hersh will be joined in conversation by John Doe, founding member of punk band X and author of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk.

Nearly 70 years after its release, Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man carries renewed urgency in our time of racial reckoning. Written before the civil rights movement, the novel uses the particulars of a young black man’s journey through segregated America to explore race, identity, and democracy. Invisible Man is, by turns, beautiful and painful, funny and wise. It is a challenging book that lends itself to close attention and guided discussion. This series of programs celebrates the literary, cultural, and social legacies of Ellison’s groundbreaking work. Explore this classic American novel with three group discussions, followed by a culminating conversation.

Please join us for a reading and conversation with Geoffrey Nutter and Matthew Rohrer to celebrate their new books of poetry, Giant Moth Perishes and The Sky Contains the Plans. John Ebersole of Kenyon Review says of Geoffrey Nutter's work, “For years now, Nutter has been quietly writing some of the most beautiful poems in America.” Geoffrey Nutter has published five books, including The Rose of January and Cities at Dawn (both from Wave Books), and has taught poetry classes at Princeton, The New School, New York University, Columbia University, and the 92nd Street Y in NYC. Nutter’s poems have been translated into Spanish, French, and Mandarin. He currently teaches Greek and Latin Classics at Queens College, and runs the Wallson Glass Poetry Seminars in New York City. Publishers Weekly, starred review, calls The Sky Contains the Plans, "Serene, odd, and quietly captivating, this is a celebration of the unconscious mind’s delights." Matthew Rohrer is the author of The Sky Contains the Plans, The Others, which was the winner of the 2017 Believer Book Award, Surrounded by Friends, Destroyer and Preserver, A Plate of Chicken, Rise Up and A Green Light, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite, and co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks., and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing. His first book, A Hummock in the Malookas was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver in 1994. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at NYU.

In our new live demo series, Bring the Heat, join us for a live stream of glass artists demonstrating their expertise and skillful execution while “in the zone.” During each demo, an artist will present a personal design they’ve worked to perfect, and they will be live on the mic to narrate as they work—a rarity for live artist demonstrations and a first at the Museum. Richard Whiteley has spent his life working with glass, developing a fascination for the material when he began apprenticing in stained glass at the age of 16.

In this online lecture, curator Sue Brunning brings viewers closer than ever to the Sutton Hoo finds. The objects of the Sutton Hoo ship burial transformed our understanding of the Early Middle Ages forever. Excavated in 1938–1939 in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, the treasures found in its chamber included Byzantine silverware, sumptuous gold jewelry, a lavish feasting set, and, most famously, an ornate iron helmet. With detailed photographs and graphics decoding the imagery on these objects, Sue Brunning will explore the complex artistry, creativity and thinking that underpinned this remarkable burial.

In this course, pianist and educator Daniel Weiser will explore the tragically short, but incredibly productive life of America's greatest composer. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Gershwin grew up in the rough, chaotic streets of New York and soaked up the melting pot around him to help formulate the new, brash sound of America. Combining elements of "Jewish" music with the "Blues" and "Ragtime" brought by recent black migrants from the South, Gershwin would help produce the new "Jazz" that would soon help make New York City a new center for musical culture. Gershwin seamlessly moved between the "classical" and "popular" worlds to help obscure some of the more overt differences between them. Over four classes, Dr. Weiser will play much of Gershwin's concert music, including "Rhapsody in Blue," "An American in Paris," and his "Preludes." He will also perform many of his iconic songs, most written with his brother Ira, as well as his obscure early opera, "Blue Monday."

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color in the United States. In addition, the uneven and unequal distribution of vaccines is raising the issue of mistrust and vaccine hesitancy in these same communities. Lack of trust in the US healthcare system among communities of color is inextricably linked to the history of systemic racism in this country. With fewer than half of Black American adults indicating that they will definitely or probably get vaccinated against COVID-19, understanding the roots of this hesitancy—which dates back centuries—is critical to battling the disease. Discussions of medical racism often focus on a set of famous tragic cases, while failing to address the longer history of the systematic medical neglect and abuse of African American health. Speakers on this panel will examine the roots in slavery of contemporary African American mistrust of the healthcare system, the lack of trust in medical providers fostered by experiences of everyday racism, and the African American community’s long dependence, born of necessity, on care from within the community. Gather with us to explore how a deeper understanding of our history can help us promote health equity in the present.

Over the last 20 years, the search for planets orbiting other stars has reached fever pitch. We have discovered more than 2,000 extra-solar planets to date, and that number continues to grow. Using expertise in star-dating to measure the ages of thousands of stars and planets in the Milky Way, Museum Curator Ruth Angus describes how these planets are detected and what we now understand about the diverse planetary ecosystems in the Milky Way. Find out how she hopes to reveal the processes behind the formation of these alien worlds and their distribution across the galaxy.

James Beard Award-winning chef Renee Erickson joins Carla Lalli Music for the cooking class and conversation we’re all craving right now, based on recipes from her new book — Getaway: Food & Drink to Transport You. The Pacific Northwest’s most influential chef, Renee is celebrated for the fresh, beautiful, seasonal food she serves up at her Seattle restaurants The Walrus and the Carpenter, The Whale Wins, Barnacle and others. Getaway features chapters devoted to Renee’s favorite culinary escapes with brilliant recipes to evoke them, stopping in Rome (amari, salumi and salty bites), Paris (apéritifs, vermouth, tartines), Baja (spicy beer, fish tacos, crackling tostadas), Normandy, London and Seattle. Join Renee and learn to make the simple, sophisticated, destination-worthy dishes and cocktails that will turn your summer entertaining into a transportive experience.

From the Beautiful Youth to the Dark Lady, this episode will seek to dispel long-held myths (and perhaps celebrate a few) about one of the most studied and most mysterious bodies of poetry in the world: Shakespeare’s love sonnets. Why were they written? When? And to whom and what for? If ye seek answers to those questions (and more!), seek ye here.

Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she’s been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. Now, in her first book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Knopf), the world’s leading forest ecologist brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths — that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes — in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways — how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies — and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. Finding the Mother Tree is a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery. Simard will be joined in conversation by Aaron Scott, host of OPB's Timber Wars podcast and a producer/reporter for Oregon Field Guide. This event is cosponsored by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The Sir Percival David Collection encompasses the most famous private assemblage of Chinese ceramics, amassed by financier and philanthropist Sir Percival David. This talk by Stacey Pierson, Reader in the History of Chinese Ceramics at SOAS, University of London, explores the biography of Sir Percival David through the lens of this remarkable collection, on permanent display in Room 95 at the British Museum. It will be introduced by Jessica Harrison-Hall, Head of China Section and Curator of the Sir Percival David Collection and Decorative Arts at the British Museum.

Four million people in nearly 200 countries read the New York Times to get a supposedly objective view of the news and to learn what the Times thinks is important. But they aren’t always getting that kind of view. In his book Suppressed, Robert M. Smith, a Times former White House and investigative correspondent, discloses how some stories make it to print while others are ignored, how the filters work, and how the paper may have suppressed some of the most important stories of the day—the My Lai Massacre and Watergate.

We will study the art of the Netherlands during the height of Dutch commercial prosperity, after achieving independence from Spanish Hapsburg rule (Philip II). The new republic was the most prosperous country in Europe, leading in trade, science, and art. Dutch Baroque art during the 17th century excelled in portraiture, genre painting, landscape/seascape/urban scenes, religious/historical themes and still life; it reflected the tradition of detailed realism and narrative directness. It developed a visual culture dependent on sight and seeing, above all on precise observation. It produced numerous artists such as Lastman, ter Brugghen, de Gelder, van Ruysdael, van der Heyden, Jordaens, Victors, Hals, Steen, Flinck, Vermeer, and Rembrandt, the greatest genius of Dutch art, who influenced art all over the Western world. About instructor Ernest Newborn: Ernest Newbrun is Prof. Emeritus at UCSF where he taught oral biology for over 30 years. He earned dental degrees (BDS, DMD), graduate degrees (MS, PhD) and received honorary doctorates (Doc Odont, DDSc). Since his retirement from the UC in 1994, he has been teaching in lifelong learning programs at USF’s Fromm Institute and Sonoma State University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on a wide range of topics in science (evolution), nutrition (sugars & sweeteners), origin of scripts, and art history (biblical art, secessionism, expressionism, self-portraiture, murals, stolen art, innovators in modern art). Prof. Newbrun was born in Vienna, Austria, grew up in Sydney, Australia and has lived in San Francisco since 1961. He has spent a sabbatical leave in Nijmegen, during which time he visited most of the art museums in the Netherlands.

In arranging his collection into groupings called “ensembles,” Albert Barnes disrupted traditional historical and geographic boundaries to focus on the commonalities between fine art and everyday objects. In the ensembles, paintings, metalwork, furniture, ceramics, and textiles are placed side by side in unexpected and surprising ways. Dr. Barnes designed these groupings as teaching tools—and they are still as enigmatic and enlightening to us now as they were in the early 20th century. Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.

This workshop fuses explorations of works of art with fun and meaningful expressive writing exercises. No writing experience required, just a willing pen and curious mind. Facilitated by Hood Museum Teaching Specialist Vivian Ladd and author Joni B. Cole, founder of the Writer’s Center of White River Junction. Space is limited. Registration is required.

On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722, two white fur traders attacked an Indigenous hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, this act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the definition of justice in early America. In Covered with Night, leading historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath, bringing us into the overlapping worlds of white colonists and Indigenous peoples in this formative period. As she shows, the murder of the Indigenous man set the entire mid-Atlantic on edge, with many believing war was imminent. Isolated killings often flared into colonial wars in North America, and colonists now anticipated a vengeful Indigenous uprising. Frantic efforts to resolve the case ignited a dramatic, far-reaching debate between Native American forms of justice―centered on community, forgiveness, and reparations―and an ideology of harsh reprisal, unique to the colonies and based on British law, which called for the killers’ swift execution. In charting the far-reaching ramifications of the murder, Covered with Night―a phrase from Iroquois mourning practices―overturns persistent assumptions about “civilized” Europeans and “savage” Native Americans. As Eustace powerfully contends, the colonial obsession with “civility” belied the reality that the Iroquois, far from being the barbarians of the white imagination, acted under a mantle of sophistication and humanity as they tried to make the land- and power-hungry colonials understand their ways. In truth, Eustace reveals, the Iroquois―the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee, as they are known today―saw the killing as an opportunity to forge stronger bonds with the colonists. They argued for restorative justice and for reconciliation between the two sides, even as they mourned the deceased. An absorbing chronicle built around an extraordinary group of characters―from the slain man’s resilient widow to the Indigenous diplomat known as “Captain Civility” to the scheming governor of Pennsylvania―Covered with Night transforms a single event into an unforgettable portrait of early America. A necessary work of historical reclamation, it ultimately revives a lost vision of crime and punishment that reverberates down into our own time. Nicole Eustace is professor of history at New York University. She is the author of 1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism and Passion Is the Gale: Emotion, Power, and the Coming of the American Revolution. She lives in Mamaroneck, New York.

Many of us may be hesitant to travel at the moment, or even to go to the movies; but we can gather to discuss some great films set on the highways and byways. As the recent theatrical release of Nomadland testifies, the American road movie has enduring appeal and seems almost endlessly adaptable to different cultural circumstances. In this four part series we will take a very quick survey of the genre, from a Hollywood studio classic which established the couple as central protagonist and self-determination as a defining force, to a contemporary entry which confronts us with an urgent new take on some of the central concerns in these movies. While this course is designed as a series, the discussions will be focused on the individual films, and participants are welcome to join for any or all sessions. Spread out between April and early June, the four films to be discussed are: It Happened One Night; Bonnie and Clyde; Thelma & Louise; and Queen & Slim. WHAT TO EXPECT: Participants are asked to watch the film in advance using the guiding questions to help prepare for the discussion evening. At the start of each event, the host will explain the format for the evening, provide some additional context, and lead a brief introductory discussion of the film. Participants will then be broken out into smaller groups to discuss the guiding questions, and each evening will conclude with the entire group reconvening and the host providing some final commentary or questions for additional consideration. Registration is free, but you must register for each film discussion separately. You will find all of the registration links on the main event page.

Acclaimed Broadway actress and chanteuse Melissa Errico, working in collaboration with New Yorker essayist and lyricist Adam Gopnik, presents a series of three concerts weaving together music and conversation. The trio of concerts delves into every aspect of the great French obsession: l’amour fou, or crazy, overpowering, all-consuming love. Through these evenings Errico and Gopnik investigate and illuminate the cycle that France first offered the world—of how love becomes desire, how desire is cloaked in mystery, and how then the mystery of desire reveals the madness of love again. After the many objects of Love, and the liquid unpredictability of Desire, comes the shadows of Mystery. Our third evening begins in 1940s America, where what the French call the “polar”—the dark crime novel or film—is invented only to be imitated and transcended in France. Adam Gopnik discusses the evolution of ‘noir’ sensibility in Paris and New York, from Baudelaire’s infatuation with Poe through the impact of American films, such as Double Indemnity, on tastemakers at Cahiers du Cinéma. Melissa Errico sings simmering, dark noir songs, including “Blues in the Night,” “Laura,” and “I’m a Fool to Want You,” as well as the world premiere of a bilingual song by Gopnik and Peter Foley, written specially for the occasion: “We Live, We Love, We Lie, We Die.” Tedd Firth will continue his inimitable piano mastery, and Gopnik may be persuaded to pick up his guitar again and accompany the chanteuse on her mysterious musical errands.

For Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, an event that celebrates the life work of DC Chief Creative Officer and Publisher Jim Lee. He will appear in conversation with illustrator Bernard Chang (“Generations Forged”) and writers Sarah Kuhn (“Shadow of the Batgirl”) and Minh Lê (“Green Lantern: Legacy”). Moderated by former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Gene Luen Yang (“Superman Smashes the Klan”). The Jim Lee and Asian American Superheroes panel is a “Great American Publishers” segment of the “Behind the Book” series. These interviews focus on leading gatekeepers in publishing who bring great works to fruition—from the germ of an idea to the production of a physical book. Lee is one of the heroes of the publishing world who champion talent, create an overall vision for a house, and bring us the kind of publications critics will laud and readers will relish for decades, even centuries to come. “Behind the Book: Great American Publishers” celebrates the crucial role publishers play and takes you inside America’s legendary publishing houses as top professionals discuss their careers with their most successful authors.

Join assistant curator Elisabeth Sherman and curatorial assistant Ambika Trasi for an overview of the exhibition Dawoud Bey: An American Project. For more than four decades, Dawoud Bey has used the camera to create poignant meditations on visibility, power, and race, chronicling communities and histories that have largely been underrepresented or even unseen. The exhibition traces continuities across Bey’s major series, from his earliest street portraits in Harlem through his most recent project imagining an escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad. For this event, Sherman and Trasi will provide an overview of the exhibition and then take questions from the audience.

Go LIVE with our Chief Astronomer! Gather with others and the Franklin Institute on the first Thursday of every month at 7:45pm Eastern. Look to the sky. Find your direction. Chief Astronomer Derrick Pitts invites stargazers of all ages to step outside and join him for the first in a series of night sky tours from home. Amateur astronomers, guided by our very own @coolastronomer, will tour the cosmos, stare at the stars, and be amazed by astronomy—no telescopes needed. How do I recognize a planet? How can I spot the International Space Station? How does the sky move? What type of stars can I see? How do I begin looking for constellations? Ask the questions, satisfy your curiosity, and learn from the best! Tune in LIVE on The Franklin Institute's Facebook channel.

Michelle Zauner is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases like Psychopomp (2016) and Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017), and will release her third LP, Jubilee, on June 4th. In a new memoir, Crying in H Mart, Zauner reflects on her experience being raised by a Korean immigrant in the Pacific Northwest, and particularly her memories related to food. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and Zauner moved back to Oregon to care for her, she was forced to reckon with her identity and upbringing. Zauner writes about the process of beginning to chase down her mother’s history, culture, and the flavors of Korea to re-gain the feeling of home in the wake of her loss. Bowen Yang is a featured player on Saturday Night Live, where he wrote for one season before moving on-screen. He can also be seen recurring on Comedy Central’s Awkwafina is Nora From Queens, as well as in the TV shows Broad City, High Maintenance, Jon Glaser Loves Gear, and the upcoming series Girls5eva. He is the co-host of the popular comedy podcast “Las Culturistas,” along with fellow comedian Matt Rogers. This past year, Yang was featured in TIME as one of “23 People Who Are Changing What’s Funny Right Now,” as well as one of their TIME 100 NEXT: Artists, and was featured in this year’s Out100 list.

You know the saying: “Life finds a way.” Meet the world’s most poisonous bird, tiny thermophiles, and other living organisms that have adapted—and thrive—through extreme measures and in extreme environments.

San Francisco’s Chinatown, the oldest in North America, is an iconic and influential part of the cultural fabric of San Francisco. Beyond its contemporary popularity as a tourist attraction, the neighborhood exists as a dynamic community of families and individuals cultivating tradition and nurturing social progress. In this program, join filmmaker James Q. Chan as he shares his current documentary project, Chinatown Stories: You are Here, and premieres a new episode. Chinatown Stories: You Are Here centers vibrant and specific stories from within the community—bridging us to one another, one short film at a time. Each film is a specific entry point into a Chinatown neighborhood and the inspiring contributions community members made in shaping their community and beyond. Chan will be joined by Dorothy Quock, researcher and beloved Chinatown community elder, for a live conversation about the series.

Designed for students who want to refine and enhance their compositional skills and improve their way of seeing, this introduction to photography course covers basic camera handling, composition, light, and subject matter. Open to All Skill Levels: Students ranging from beginner to experienced will be successful in classes.

Since the days of silent film, music has accompanied moving pictures in theaters. Whether by single piano or organ, a band or orchestra playing on “cue” from written arrangements, music synchronized to filmed action and dialogue has been an integral part of the movie experience. With the advent of “talkies” and release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, synchronous dialog and singing with a musical score was combined onto a “soundtrack” and there was no turning back. The pianos and organs of the silent era have been replaced by film scores featuring every conceivable type of music from symphony orchestras to the esoteric, indigenous, and electronic sounds, decades of pop music. By presenting numerous audio and video excerpts and commentary, the series will explore the history, art, and science of film music as seen through the composers’ lens — their fabulous film scores in some of the greatest movies ever shown on the big screen. Five weekly sessions. This program will be recorded and available for later viewing by those who register.

From the Morgan’s three Gutenberg Bibles to the intricately carved cylinder seals of Ancient Mesopotamia, join our Morgan docents as they guide you on an up-close virtual exploration and discussion of one of the many works in the institution’s treasured permanent collection. Please note that the program will take place online. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation email with instructions on how to participate using Zoom.

Alison Bechdel's cult following for her early comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For grew wildly in response to her family memoirs, the best-selling graphic memoir Fun Home, adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical, and Are You My Mother? She has become a cultural household name for the concept of the Bechdel Test, a metric used when considering the representation of women in fiction. Bechdel has been named a MacArthur Fellow and Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont, among many other honors. Her new memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s (“Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!”) to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. George McCalman is an artist and creative director based in San Francisco. His studio, McCalman.Co, designs brands for a range of cultural clientele. Additionally, he’s a visual columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, featured in the “Observed” and “First Person” columns. His first book, Illustrated Black History, is due to be published by Amistad/Harper Collins Fall 2021. Ticket includes a hardcover copy of Bechdel’s new memoir The Secret to Superhuman Strength. Books will be mailed the week of the event.

Fresh warm flatbread is the perfect vessel for scooping up delicious seasonal dips and perfect food for picnicking during these brisk and sunny days of Spring. Gracie has perfected her pita recipe and is excited to share it with you, alongside some very exciting spring dips! Fava bean hummus is vibrantly green and shouts, "Springtime!" from the roof tops. A simple homemade Greek yogurt cheese, labneh, is given a seasonal flair with the addition of spring onions and herbs. Skordalia, a Greek dip made with potatoes, almonds, and garlic is made creamier and more delightful with the addition of buttery little new potatoes and green garlic. Menu for this week's class: Homemade Pita Bread; Spring Peas and Fava Bean Hummus; Labneh with Spring Herbs; and New Potato and Green Garlic Skordalia.

David Mitchell is the award-winning and bestselling author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, Ghostwritten and The Bone Clocks. Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Washington Post, The Guardian, his latest novel Utopia Avenue follows the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Mitchell’s kaleidoscopic novel tells the story of Utopia Avenue’s turbulent life and times; of stardom’s wobbly ladder; of the families we choose and the ones we don’t; of voices in the head, and the truths and lies they whisper; of music, madness, and idealism. Pico Iyer is a travel writer, essayist, and novelist, whose many books include Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Man Within My Head, and The Art of Stillness, a beautiful and thoughtful investigation of the benefits of quiet contemplation and travel to “nowhere.”

For this class, chef Camila will return to her mother country of Argentina, and offer us a twist on her mother’s recipe from Camila's childhood. Camila will be cooking alongside her kids, and we'd love to have you do the same! We will make the dough from scratch, using butter or oil, instead of the traditional suet. We will make two options for filling the empanadas: a traditional meat filling and a veggie option, too. Menu for this virtual hands-on class includes: Argentinian Empanada Dough; Meat Empanadas; and Spinach and Cheese Empanadas.

Get your pen (or laptop keys) moving in this fast-paced introduction to creative writing. Through weekly lectures, readings, and opportunities to share your work in a supportive environment, you will begin to hone your craft, learning tips for how to create compelling characters, snappy dialogue, and satisfying story structures. Whether your dream is to write the Great American Novel or to capture true stories from your own life, this course will help you write the kinds of narratives that will keep your reader fascinated from the first word to the last. After this class, you will be able to: Describe characters (real or imagined) in compelling ways; Choose a narrator and point of view; Employ a variety of techniques to both “show and tell”; Craft effective dialogue; Design a narrative structure/plot; Experiment with different styles.

Did you know that blue is the rarest flower color? Please join Brandon George, graduate student in Public Garden Leadership at Cornell University, for an in-depth talk on the color blue. In this live virtual conversation, Brandon will discuss what is technically considered blue, as well as the science behind the color, why it is so rare in the plant world, and some tips for displaying it in a garden. Finally, he will share where true blue can be found at the Cornell Botanic Gardens. The program is sure to spark your curiosity and inspire you to search for blue in nature. The program is free but pre-registration is required. Click here to register. After registering, you will be sent a confirmation with instructions for joining the Zoom webinar. The webinar will be recorded for later viewing, but participants in the live program will have the opportunity to pose questions. This program is offered as part of Go Public Gardens Days (May 7 to May 16, 2021), an initiative of the American Public Gardens Association designed to raise awareness and appreciation for public gardens in communities across North America.

As efforts to distribute COVID-19 vaccines intensify throughout the United States and across the globe, how can we ensure that equity and access are prioritized? This panel seeks to address the challenges and opportunities of equitable public health strategies around COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at writing historical fiction set in the ancient world, this class is for you. An immersive, hands-on workshop, the class will consider how to develop believable character arcs, craft emotional plot points, establish an appealing narrative voice, and draw authentic settings. The class will address writing tips such as how to “show not tell” and how to create attention-grabbing openings, and the tension between historical fact and story-worthy fiction will be explored. Class participants will listen to lectures on writing and practice the presented techniques. Class discussions will cover the value of reviewing the work of others, and how to make the most of reviews from the instructor and trusted readers to improve one’s work. The final week will include practical advice on getting work published. Live class lectures and discussion every Tuesday on Zoom, which will be recorded and available to watch later. Instructor: Malayna Evans, PhD, author of Jagger Jones and the Mummy’s Ankh and Aria Jones & the Guardian’s Wedja.

When award-winning, trendsetting chef Gregory Gourdet got sober, he took stock of his life and his pantry, concentrating his energy on getting himself healthy by cooking food that was both full of nutrients and full of flavor. Now, the beloved Top Chef star shares these extraordinary dishes with everyone. Gourdet’s Everyone’s Table (Harper Wave) features 200 mouthwatering, decadently flavorful recipes carefully designed to focus on superfoods — ingredients with the highest nutrient density, the best fats, and the most minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants — that will delight home cooks. Gourdet’s dishes are inspired by his deep affection for global ingredients and techniques — from his Haitian upbringing to his French culinary education, from the cuisines of Asia as well as those of North and West Africa. His unique culinary odyssey informs this one-of-a-kind cookbook, which features dynamic vegetable-forward dishes and savory meaty stews, umami-packed sauces and easy ferments, and endless clever ways to make both year-round and seasonal ingredients shine. Everyone’s Table will change forever the way we think about, approach, and enjoy healthy eating. Gourdet will be joined in conversation, Michelle Tam, food blogger and author of Nom Nom Paleo.

Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco. Her research aims to elucidate mechanisms of healthy aging, and to use this science to help vulnerable populations. She studies psychological, social, and behavioral processes related to chronic psychological stress that accelerate biological aging, with a focus on overeating and metabolism. With her colleagues, Epel develops and tests interventions that combine behavioral, psychological, and mindfulness training, in order to improve stress resilience and physiological homeostatic capacity and slow aging. Epel is the Director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center, and the Consortium for Obesity Assessment, Study, & Treatment, (COAST), and Associate Director of the Center for Health and Community. She is also the co-author of The Telomere Effect: The New Science of Living Younger Longer, which integrates the science of cell aging with practical daily tips. Dacher Keltner is a professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. His research focuses on the biological and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, beauty, and humility, as well as power, social class, and inequality. He is the author of several books, including Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, The Compassionate Instinct, and The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence. He has also consulted for Apple, Pinterest, Google, the Sierra Club, and served as a scientific consultant for Pixar’s Inside Out and for the Center for Constitutional Rights in its work to outlaw solitary confinement. Keltner is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

UCSF has a long history of pioneering biomedical research, outstanding clinical care, innovative programs in medical education, and a bold vision for advancing health locally and worldwide. Hailing from a wide spectrum of disciplines, UCSF clinicians and scientists invite you inside their work to learn what is known about the current COVID-19 pandemic, what lies ahead, and the implications of lessons-learned on future medical treatments. Direct from those who live and breathe it every day, find out WHAT’s NEXT in the science and care of COVID-19.

Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj’s fashion-forward portraits of artists, musicians, models, local community members, and cultural figures are distinctly his own. He fuses colorful pattern-filled and often symbolic backdrops with a passion for fashion to style and capture his subjects with a commanding presence. In doing so, he redefines cultural stereotypes and presents strong representations of Blackness in his images. Inspired by the photography studios of small-town 1960s Morocco and drawing on the playfulness and consumer aesthetic used by the artists of the Pop Art movement, Hajjaj’s work cheekily unites art, fashion, and commerce. His use of popular items such as Coca-Cola cans and Nike shoes when styling, framing of photographs by literal canned goods and soda cans, and work on his fashion and design lines “Andy Wahloo” and UK-based La Larache showcase the underlying theme of the globalization of consumerism in his work. Gather with ICP’s Curator at Large Isolde Brielmaier and Hassan Hajjaj for the last lecture in our winter/spring ICP Talks series focusing on Hajjaj’s industry spanning practice and vibrant portraits, including his most recent project My Rockstars.

In America we like to think we live in a land of liberty, where everyone can say whatever they want. Throughout our history, however, we have also been quick to censor people who offend or frighten us. In their brief but bracing book, Free Speech, historian Jonathan Zimmerman and Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Signe Wilkinson tell the story of free speech in America and make the case for why we should care about it today.

The bold, abstract paintings of Irene Rice Pereira … the subtle delicacy of those by Whistler … the Surrealist works of Man Ray … the wire sculptures of Ruth Asawa … all of them American, all of them born of vital movements in modern art. Join professor and modern art historian Joseph Field for this new four-part course examining American artists from the 19th century to the present day. You’ll explore work by Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson, Andrew Wyeth, Helen Frankenthaler, and William Baziotes, along with those by lesser-known artists likely to be a revelation. With Field leading your examination of their work, you’ll gain new insights into these artists and their influences, and into American modern art movements like Abstract Expressionism. And you’ll come away with a deepened understanding of why American artists have been so instrumental to the advancement of the visual arts on a global scale.

Gather with us for a conversation with Easton LaChappelle, an innovator who was featured in our 2015 exhibition, Designers, Makers, Users: 3D Printing the Future. Easton made his first robotic hand out of LEGOs, fishing wire and electrical tubing when he was 14. With his gradual improvement, the hand turned into an arm and advanced to a 3D-printed brain-powered invention that he could operate with his mind. After an encounter with a 7-year-old girl at a science fair whose prosthetic arm cost $80,000 (and would need to be replaced when she outgrew it), LaChappelle was inspired to turn his prototype into a practical and affordable device. At 18, Easton founded his own company, Unlimited Tomorrow, to commercialize this technology and bring it to the masses. Unlimited Tomorrow’s philosophy is to keep the user first and to give extreme technology at an affordable price. By using new technologies such as 3d printing, 3d scanning and AI, it allows Unlimited Tomorrow to create a product that’s better, faster and more affordable than anything in the market. We'll be talking to Easton about his early achievements, his career path since high school, the company he has founded, and what drives him to do the work that he does.How might we curate and design exhibitions that multisensory, interactive, and immersive experiences for visitors of all backgrounds and abilities?

Join us online as we tap into our powers of observation and investigate a work of art together through close looking and discussion. This virtual space offers the unique chance to look at artworks that are not currently on view in the galleries or are too small for in-person group visits. All adult learners are welcome. Free; advance registration is required to access the online meeting room. Registration opens May 10, 2021, 9 am (ET). Registration closes May 13, 2021, 3 pm (ET) or when registration is full.

Renaissance historian Ada Palmer explores the relationship between war, strife, and artistic production reflecting on objects in Lust, Love, and Loss in Renaissance Europe as well as other examples of art, music, and literature. Palmer examines how the artistic splendor of the Renaissance—and the willingness of patrons to invest their fortunes in it—was a reaction to crisis and violence, rather than a sign of peace. Free, but advance registration is required. Ada Palmer is a historian focusing on radical thought in Europe especially in the Renaissance. Her current research focuses on history of censorship and patterns in the motives of censors during information revolutions, from printing press to digital. An Associate Professor in the University of Chicago's History Department with affiliations in Classics, Gender Studies, and the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, she works broadly on the history of science, religion, heresy, freethought, atheism, censorship, books, printing, and long-term European history, especially the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Ticket includes a signed first edition copy of Abrams’ new novel While Justice Sleeps. Stacey Abrams was instrumental in driving an enormous number of voter registrations in Georgia, including some 800,000 new voters between the 2018 and 2020 elections. Those voters, in turn, were central to turning Georgia blue in the 2020 presidential election and Senate race. A tax attorney by training, she served eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as Minority Leader, and became the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, where she won more votes than any other Democrat in the state’s history. One of Abrams’ many other talents: fiction writing. Her newest legal thriller is While Justice Sleeps. “Stacey Abrams is a true novelist, and While Justice Sleeps is a first-class legal thriller, favorably compared to many of the best, starting with The Pelican Brief, which it brings to mind. It’s fast-paced and full of surprises—a terrific read.”— Scott Turow Rebecca Traister is the author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. Traister is writer at large for New York Magazine and a contributing editor at Elle. A National Magazine Award finalist, she has written about women in politics, media, and entertainment from a feminist perspective for The New Republic and Salon and has also contributed to The Nation, The New York Observer, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour, and Marie Claire. Her other books include All The Single Ladies and Big Girls Don’t Cry.

Throughout history, the arts, music, and humanities have served as a medium for healing. Creative expression can foster self-discovery of inner resources, cultivate resilience during life challenges, and transcend socio-cultural barriers through a shared language. This interdisciplinary course aims to explore the role of creative expression in addressing multiple dimensions of mind-body health across the lifespan. Leading UCSF clinicians, researchers, and expressive art therapists from geriatrics, neuroscience, oncology, otolaryngology, pediatrics, physical therapy, and psychiatry will present the science behind creative expression, discuss case examples, and lead experiential demonstrations.

Explore technologies designed to harness renewable energy sources and lower the carbon footprint of energy use through building and transportation design. The first week of May, the vessel Energy Observer will be docked next to our Platinum LEED-Certified campus on Pier 15. This high-tech French sailboat is the first self-sufficient, hydrogen-powered, zero-emission vessel. From solar and wind power to efficient hybrid propulsion and closed-loop heating and cooling systems, the Exploratorium building and the vessel both put an array of innovations to use for a cleaner, greener future. Virtually step onboard the ship and inside the Exploratorium to find out more about the science behind the net-zero energy goals of each.

This seminar will explore how photographers from the Civil War era constructed landscapes of slavery. What symbols and facts did they draw upon, and what narratives and interpretations were they in dialogue with and which did they promote? Gather with Makeda Best, photography curator and author of Elevate the Masses: Alexander Gardner, Photography, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century America (2020), as she explores how Alexander Gardner and others presented the infamous Franklin and Armfield slave pen, located in present-day Alexandria, Virginia.

In larders, pantries, and root cellars around the world, you are likely to find a member of the allium family: garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, ramps, scallions, and chives. Due to their ubiquity, we often take alliums for granted. In this class, we turn the spotlight on these aromatic and flavorsome ingredients, giving them their well-deserved time to shine! In this live, interactive class over Zoom, you will learn the how and why of preparation methods and the best uses of each allium. We will discuss everything from the wonders of the workhorse yellow onion, how to properly clean a leek, to what to do when the fleeting ramp season is over. Please join us as we peel back the layers of this culinary favorite and salute the chic ombre of leeks, the pungency of garlic, and the robustness of the yellow onion! This class menu includes: Triple Roasted Allium & Tomato Soup with White Beans and Charred Lemon; Green Salad with Fennel, Hazelnuts and Green Goddess Dressing; and Leek, Apple & Cheddar Bread Pudding.

A central question of democracy is how to balance a government’s need to conduct national security operations in secret with the public’s right to know what their government is doing. The answer—debated to this day—is both a complex policy judgment and an equally complex judgment about the meaning of the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and the press. Legal scholar Geoffrey Stone (coauthor of National Security, Leaks, and Freedom of the Press) convenes a panel with former director of the CIA John Brennan and Washington Post national security reporter Ellen Nakashima (two of the book’s contributors) to discuss secrecy, disclosure, security, and the First Amendment. This program is the first panel in our new series Deep Dive: Speech, curated by Geoffrey Stone. This 3-part series curated and hosted by legal scholar Geoffrey Stone (Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago) will consider a variety of perspectives on free speech in the 21st century. We'll explore some of the forces driving wide-ranging debates around First Amendment rights in our moment, including freedom of the press and national security, the role of social media platforms and internet companies, and hate speech.

May is National Bike Month! Gather with MODA for a Tireside Chat about bicycle design with Craig Calfee of Calfee Design. Calfee bicycle frames were born in 1987 when Craig recognized that carbon fiber was going to be the material of choice for racing bikes. In 1991, he got a huge boost when Tour de France winner Greg LeMond ordered 18 bikes for his team. Calfee has been a leader in bicycle design ever since. Craig explores other materials for building bikes as well, such as hemp and bamboo. He’s used the durable, inexpensive, and sustainable material to build racing, off-road, double-decker, and tandem bamboo bikes, as well as a DIY bamboo bicycle kit. He’s also helped to create a bamboo bike industry in Africa, where bikes are built with locally-grown bamboo and provide transportation and an income stream.

Painter Jordan Casteel reflects on works in the current Met exhibition Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, considering figuration and the role of photography in her own practice. Recorded in May, 2020. this event also provides access to a virtual tour of the Met's exhibit.

Your first date with French! Through a mix of French and English, this short primer course gives you the essential tools to excel as you begin your French journey. This course is specifically designed for students with no prior French exposure. You will study how French and English grammar and verbs work, how they can be so similar and so different at the same time. Through comparative grammar, conjugation and vocabulary, you will discover all the tips and tricks of the French language. Take the class live on Zoom with FIAF’s experienced teachers and start speaking French from Day 1. After completing this course, you will be ready to continue on to Beginner French A1 Level 1.

Distinguished art historian Michael Fried, professor emeritus of humanities at Johns Hopkins University, takes off from each of the three great paintings that were on loan to the Getty Museum from the Galleria Borghese in Rome to provide an overview of Caravaggio's remarkable, world-transforming achievement.

Gather with Leakey Foundation grantee Kate McGrath and learn what the teeth of our ancestors can tell us about their life histories.

Gather with ROM botanist Deborah Metsger in conversation with archaeologist J. Mark Kenoyer as they explore the rich and diverse history of textiles in the early settlements of Pakistan and western India, from the earliest evidence of cotton (7,000 BCE) to the importance of fiber arts in the emergence of early urban centers. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer is the George F. Dales Jr. and Barbara A. Dales Professor of Anthropology, at the Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison. He obtained his PhD in 1983 at the University of California Berkeley and has been teaching archaeology and ancient technology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison since 1985. He has served as Field Director and Co-Director of the Harappa Archaeological Research Project since 1986. He has worked on excavations and ethnoarchaeological studies in both Pakistan and India, and more recently in Oman. He has a special interest in ancient technologies and crafts, including textiles and textile production, socioeconomic and political organization as well as religion. These interests have led him to study a broad range of cultural periods in South Asia as well as other regions of the world, including China, Japan, Korea, Oman, and West Asia in general. His work has been featured in the National Geographic Magazine and Scientific American.

In an online seminar-style setting, this course examines today's current trends in photography by studying the past 50 years of the medium's history. Whether you are a photographer, a collector, or an enthusiast who would like to learn more about the medium, this discussion clarifies the development of contemporary themes in photography. Selected theoretical texts, along with virtual exhibition walk-throughs, round out lively visual presentations. Open to All Skill Levels: Students ranging from beginner to experienced will be successful in classes.

The year 2020 was the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, and commemorations were planned around the country. But 2020 was also the year of the pandemic and bitterly partisan politics. Our panel will discuss how the centennial adapted, where efforts succeeded, where they fell short, and reflect on how successful they were in raising public awareness of women’s fight for equality. Moderated by Rebecca Roberts, author of Suffragists in Washington DC, panelists include Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr., author of Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement; Fredie Kay, Executive Director, Suffrage100MA; Anna Laymon, former Executive Director, Women’s SuffrageCentennial Commission; and Krysta Jones, Co-chair, 2020 Women’s Vote Centennial Initiative.

In our new live demo series, Bring the Heat, join us for a live stream of glass artists demonstrating their expertise and skillful execution while “in the zone.” During each demo, an artist will present a personal design they’ve worked to perfect, and they will be live on the mic to narrate as they work—a rarity for live artist demonstrations and a first at the Museum. Since 1996, Eric Goldschmidt has devoted himself to practicing and developing the techniques of hot glass manipulation with a focus on flameworking, while studying and assisting with many of the world’s most talented glass artists.

Join Magnolia Bakery’s Chief Baking Officer, Bobbie Lloyd, as she shares her recipe for Grasshopper Icebox Pie Bars — an American classic from her cookbook, The Magnolia Bakery Handbook: A Complete Guide for the Home Baker, and a favorite from her childhood. During this class, she’ll show you her tips and tricks for making this beloved, perfect-for-summer dessert that requires minimal (if any) baking and only a few simple ingredients. Bobbie will demonstrate how to make the cool, minty and refreshing treat, while also talking through easy recipe modifications. She'll share how to use the same cookie crust base and cream cheese plus whipped cream filling to create other icebox bar variations on your own, like a classic Peanut Butter Icebox Bar. Let Bobbie be your guide to the ultimate summer dessert, as she shares one of her favorite Icebox Pie Bar recipes — with love, from her kitchen to yours.

Why is Earth’s sibling planet, Venus, not our twin? The surface of Earth is the most hospitable place in the solar system. But the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. How can two planets of similar size, orbiting the same star, and of the same age, comparable amount of radiation, and composition end up vastly different? Might there have been a time in the past when Venus was more Earth-like? Could Earth one day turn into a second Venus? Volcanism sets the stage for these foundational investigations in planetary science. Planetary geologists glean insights about the volcanic character of a planet—and how volcanism has shaped its surface and climate— with remotely sensed data, laboratory and numerical modeling, and studies of similar field sites on Earth. Gather with Paul Byrne, associate professor of planetary science at North Carolina State University, to explore how volcanoes can make or break a planet's climate, how they may have contributed to turning Venus from an Earth-like world to the forbidding environment it is today, and whether the same fate might one day befall the planet we call home.

This is a live, interactive, hands-on cooking class held online via Zoom. Pie crusts can be intimidating. The threat of mushy, under-cooked undersides and the fear of rolling out concentric dough has kept many people from trying their hand at this pastry classic. Enter the galette. Galettes have all the flavor of pies but are far more low key. No blind baking and no tedious crust crimping. They are the pastry equivalent of the dinner guest who always knows what to say and gets along with everyone. Not only will you learn the timeless technique of making galettes, you'll also be inspired by Marie's inventiveness with spring produce. Conquer your fear of stinging nettles and perhaps use tarragon for the first time! Join us as we learn how to make beautiful and flaky crusts while saluting the season with fillings that feature the produce of spring. This class menu includes: Leek and Nettle Galette with Lemon Chevre; and Balsamic Roasted Strawberry Galette with Pine Nuts & Tarragon Crème Fraîche.

What does it take to be happy? America’s founding document states that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right. But this question has preoccupied philosophers, fascinated scientists, inspired artists, launched an enormous self-help industry—and continues to elude many of us. The Atlantic will host a live event that explores the human hold on happiness—and aims to find ways to build a more meaningful life. The event will consider happiness and relationships; the role of spirituality; how social media and other technology are affecting our happiness; and the ways in which a year of social isolation has reframed our understanding of a lasting sense of joy.

By day the painter Francis Bacon explored the secrets of a dark century; by night he swashbuckled through London’s Soho, a Wildean figure who “adored” life and never concealed his homosexuality. In their monumental new biography of the artist, Francis Bacon: Revelations, Mark Stevens ’73 and Annalyn Swan ’73—who won the Pulitzer Prize for de Kooning: An American Master—bring to life this complex man and offer fresh insights into his unforgettable art. Joined by Art Museum Director James Steward.

Brush up your French in this interactive refresher course offered for the Beginner A1 level and get a head start on the next level, Advanced Beginner A2. Ideal for students who want to strengthen and review their language skills before moving on to the next level, we’ll explore online media, video and contemporary music to reinforce conversation abilities, comprehension, grammar and vocabulary. Setting aside the traditional textbook format, we’ll engage with real-world situations and dialogue for a unique, fun transition into the next stage of your French journey.

Bringing to life stories of struggle and the ideas of lawmakers, committed rebels and ambitious monarchs and generals, Linda Colley reshapes our understanding of the modern world through the evolution and spread of written constitutions. “An incandescent, paradigm-shifting new book” (Jill Lepore in The New Yorker), Colley's book, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World (Liveright, released March 30, 2021) traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the 20th century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close and frequent connections between the making of constitutions and the making of war. Through meticulous research, Colley shows how constitutions crossed continents, at times aiding the rise of empires and monarchies as well as the emergence of new nations and republics. In this virtual presentation on May 20, broadcast live from the Museum, Colley will offer a global perspective on American state and federal constitutions as the Museum prepares for the opening of its summer exhibition, Flags and Founding Documents, 1776-Today, which will include a display of historic early state constitutions. Museum President & CEO Dr. R. Scott Stephenson will join the discussion to explore how the rise and spread of written constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare before facilitating a live Q&A with the virtual audience.

Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, Burgundy’s Climats, or terroirs, are world renowned. Lesser known is that these prestigious wines are also incredibly versatile, beautifully complementing delicate and bold flavors alike. Vanessa Price, co-author of Big Macs & Burgundy, will examine the bolder side of the spectrum during this illuminating evening of surprising and indulgent pairings. Nicole Muscari, wine advisor from Vivant, will present the evening’s selection of six wines, provided in 100 ml tubes, focusing on hidden treasures from south Burgundy. This region, where the Saône river winds through the Côte Chalonnaise and the Maconnais, a lesser-known subregion, welcomes you with unexpected high-quality wines. Home to enticing Pinot Noir and citrusy Chardonnay, southern Burgundy has its own distinct vibe. The evening will be moderated by Yannick Benjamin, co-founder of Wheeling Forward and Head Sommelier of The University Club.

New proposals to increase heart donations after brain death raise complex ethical dilemmas. Join the MS in Bioethics Program at Columbia and Columbia's Center for Clinical Medical Ethics for a discussion of these controversies and how to move forward.

This is a course for any and everyone! Imagination is your creative engine. It reminds us of children playing and Einstein claiming imagination is superior to knowledge. Play is a state of mind. The two together can lead to deep transformations in your performance and individuation process. During this four-week course, the class will focus on cultivating the imagination through play. The exercises and tasks teach artists to enter into creative states where play becomes effortless. These exercises are great for COVID artists at home, who need to keep their creative tools sharp. We are going to utilize play states and the imagination in a variety of ways, allowing artists to find new and unique applications of the work in their own art.

In this six-week virtual course, we will dive into the art of storytelling and personal narratives. Whether you have a solo show dying to be birthed or you want to hone your storytelling skills for professional reasons, this class will help you: harness your creativity, trust your instincts, quiet your inner critic, find your unique voice through acting, improv and writing exercises.

This course will examine the contested meaning of the Scopes Trial in American culture context with Darwinism, through the trial transcripts, Clarence Darrow's and William Jennings Bryan's aims in order to consider how to interpret its meaning. (Note there will be a one hour lunch break).

Granted, it is hard to beat a bowl of strawberries and cream. But these little red flavor bombs are much more versatile than just that. Come to 18 Reasons as we take strawberries for a savory turn! First, we will lightly pickle slices of berries, and use them to brighten an appetizer of seared scallops, pea shoots, and puffed wild rice. Then we will use a host of strawberries to make a perfect bed for some balsamic glazed quail skewers by dicing the strawberries into a delicate, fruity risotto. And – not covered in the class - you can, of course, finish off your meal with those classic berries and cream for dessert…The menu for this class includes: Pickled Strawberry, Puffed Wild Rice, Pea Shoot, and Seared Scallop Salad and Strawberry Risotto with Balsamic Glazed Quail.

Get your plan for late spring and summer reading together! Join author Stephanie Rabinowitz for an exciting exploration of relatively unsung American literary gems that you should be reading. From Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop to John Williams’s Stoner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Henry James’s What Maisie Knew, and Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose, Rabinowitz will focus on the rare and masterful ability of these authors to create narrators with wholly original points of view. The revolutionary techniques of these writers allowed them to achieve the impossible: offering the reader that nearly out-of-body experience of empathizing with fictional characters.

In this program, professor Yurika Wakamatsu will examine Lotus in Autumn (1872), an exceptionally large and immersive ink painting by Okuhara Seiko (1837–1913). The work takes the viewer on a journey from an intricate web of tangled lines and inky blotches to a lotus pond bathed in moonlight. Rising from the depths of muddy pools, lotuses have long been cherished for their unsullied pink blossoms crowning slender green stems at the height of summer. But in Seiko’s painting, leaves unfurl into broad, broken parasols, and seed pods hang from dry, bent stalks. Why did Seiko choose to depict withered lotuses? And why did she render these decaying plants vibrant? Wakamatsu’s exploration reveals how Lotus in Autumn twists conventional pictorial and literary tropes to invite the viewer to appreciate the unconventional. Professor Wakamatsu’s presentation will be followed by a response from professor Victoria Weston, a specialist in neo-traditional Japanese painting, and a moderated conversation with professor Melissa McCormick.

Innovation and entrepreneurism appear inextricably woven into the American DNA. Throughout American history, the great inventors and innovators gazed into the future and saw the products and services that would transform the world. As of 2018, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had granted its 10 millionth patent. In Brainstorms and Mindfarts, author Jim Downey presents a collection of the brightest and most innovative American inventions along with the frivolous and utterly useless ones lost to history.

Investments in achieving gender equity have significant and well-established impacts on a range of vital social and economic indicators. Where scholars and practitioners meaningfully disagree is the question of how best to increase women’s power and influence: Which strategic levers of change are most effective? Does the optimal way forward lie in addressing social and cultural barriers to women’s opportunity? Increasing financial and economic influence? Political representation, grassroots organizing, and public policy changes? Or elsewhere? Our expert panelists will grapple with this question, each offering her own perspective informed by deep expertise and unique experience. The discussion will be moderated by the distinguished American historian and Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust, who was founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute and the first woman to serve as president of Harvard. Following the panel discussion, Melinda Gates will engage in a wide-ranging keynote conversation with the investor and philanthropist David Rubenstein.

Where can we start with Art? From cave paintings to the work being created right now, this speed-date with a complex discipline will whet your appetite for the art that is all around us. We'll discuss artists traditional and radical roles around the world, connecting style, structure, and meaning in new ways. Week 1: Thinking globally, looking locally; Week 2: Why is it called The Canon?; Week 3: How we discuss race, class, and gender — and how we don't; Week 4: Modernism; Week 5: Contemporary Art; Week 6: A few of our favorite things: Highlights of your art history.

Broadway and Off-Broadway have numbered among New York City’s many heartbeats for years. From the time of its origins, the death of theatre has been foretold, yet the theatre always survives—through recessions, world wars, 9/11—and it will surely survive the present pandemic as well. In the meantime, in this online course, view (on your own) specially selected recorded theatrical performances that feature the best and most-accomplished theatre artists working today. During each Zoom class session, combinations of lectures and lively discussions illuminate and deepen what you have just seen. On several occasions, there will be guest participants, all working professionals culled from every aspect of the theatre world. (Note: Tuition does not include the cost of attending online performances (not all performances charge an attendance fee).

In this workshop you will explore ways of creating stories through interactive improv games. Working with Christian Roman (Story Artist for film and television), and Rebecca Stockley (Professional Improviser), the ensemble will be introduced to two perspectives on developing stories: Film and Improvisation. Engaging in a variety of activities, the group will work together to tell new stories collaboratively, enhance story building skills, and take-home activities for co-creating stories.

In the 1850s, trade between France and Japan resumed for the first time in nearly 250 years. The resulting impact of Japanese art and design on French visual culture—impressionist painting in particular—was extraordinary. Investigate how Monet, Degas, Whistler, Van Gogh, and others incorporated a Japanese aesthetic into their practices. Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway are two of the greatest giants of 20th-century American literature: their novels continue to captivate readers worldwide today. Less known is how their personal literary connection and friendship reveal key elements of their work and help us understand the themes of some of their most compelling writing. In this brand new course, Bard College Professor of Comparative Literature Joseph Luzzi will take us inside one of the most consequential friendships – and rivalries – in all of American literature, as we explore the drama, emotions, and events connecting the legendary authors of works like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast. We will also draw on the correspondence between the two authors and the words of other cultural figures as we reconstruct one of the most celebrated and complex relations in all of modern American literature. Meets every Monday in June.

This course focuses on well-known 19th-century photographers, looking closely at their innovations and delving into early debates about the purpose and potential of this new medium. Was photography supposed to produce documents or art? Was it a passive record or highly subjective view of the world? Was it a technology to produce evidence or a radical new form of entertainment and political propaganda? Did photographic portraits capture the inner essence of its sitters or reveal the limitations of outward appearances? And finally, was photography a democratic invention, or did it reinforce class privilege and power? Discover how these fundamental questions about photography anticipated the complexities of our own image-saturated world. Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.

Discuss major new work by today’s top American writers, including emerging novelists, award-winners, and established favorites, all of whom are central to today's cultural conversation We will investigate a variety of inventive narrative strategies, explore the psychology of numerous fascinating characters, and examine important topics within a context of changing times, changing lives, and a changing world. Summer 2021 Readings: Anne Tyler, Redhead on the Side of the Road; Ayad Akhtar, Homeland Elegies; Garth Greenwell, Cleanness; Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars; Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age; Amity Gaige, Sea Wife; Colum McCann, Apeirogon; Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom. Students should read Redhead by the Side of the Road for the first class.

Gather with The Studio Resident Artist William Gudenrath and brush up on your glassworking skills! Gudenrath will demonstrate techniques in the hot shop, then show you how you can practice those skills at home. Watch and join the online commentary for the opportunity to have your questions answered live! William (Bill) Gudenrath is recognized internationally as one of the foremost authorities on glassmaking techniques of the ancient world through the 18th century.

Rediscover the timeless archetypes of the Cowboy and the Equestrian through the lens of the African diaspora and contemporary art. From the Wild West to the streets of Philadelphia, this iconic figure can be found throughout history and modern visual culture. Looking at the work of artists Phil Sumpter, Kehinde Wiley, and Mohamed Bourouissa, this class explores lost legends and reimagined myths of the Black Rider. Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.

This discussion/lecture course will focus on the whole history of Chicago, from its origins to the present, emphasizing the major events, politics, and peoples that make up one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world.

Ralph Ellison writes with a vital, incisive, discerning motile voice, and his protagonist, the young unnamed narrator, IS such qualities – in his person, his thoughts, his interactions, his utterances.

A member of one of Bordeaux’s legendary winemaking families, Pierre Lurton shares his extensive knowledge of the region as well as a selection of cuvées from Château Marjosse. Lurton has owned and cultivated Château Marjosse since 1991, and he’ll lead a tasting of selections from his Anthology Wine Collection. Started in 2017 with then newly hired winemaker Jean-Marc Domme, the Anthology wines are micro-vinifications of small-batch cuvées made from grapes on the property’s most notable parcels. Each cuvée in the collection embodies its owner’s poetic spirit and is named for one of the birds that inhabits the property. Susan Kostrzewa, Editor-in-Chief of Wine Enthusiast, will moderate.

Read novels by three women who are in the mystery writers’ hall of fame and a current author who has been praised as “one of the greatest crime novelists writing today.” We will discuss a classic Hercule Poirot case set in Egypt; a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery considered one of the highest among her masterpieces, featuring free love and a dubious omelet; a tale of the dark side of a utopian American suburb by one of the greatest “noir” mystery writers; and a new cosmopolitan American writer who specializes in Dublin Murders. Readings will be Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile; Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison; Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water; and Tana French, In the Woods. Students should read Death on the Nile for the first class.