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Dinosaurs! Science! Adventure! Break out your pith helmet as we embark upon a brazen expedition through the halls of New York City's world-famous American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Join your maverick tour guide as we deftly navigate this massive 27-building, 1.6 million square foot landmark cultural institution. Learn the science...

History Happy Hour!  Raise your glass to the past, and come discover the odd and fascinating things people thought and did in the Middle Ages and beyond.  Professor of History will offer a short presentation, and then open the floor to animated conversation over drinks!  No previous knowledge required.  Each week something...

With its earliest history seated in the ancient practice of Alchemy, the art of Distillation was created by those same early chemists trying to turn lead into gold. Though they did not succeed in creating that precious metal, they did succeed in transforming grain into spirit, and those after them turned that spirit into something magical.  ...

A survey of the causes of, and cultural and artistic reactions to, the pandemic that struck the world in the 14th century: the Black Death. We'll provide context and comparison for our current experience of COVID-19. The course will showcase art and contemporary documents that help communicate the thoughts and practices of medieval people who endured...

Politics 101 is a deep dive into the hidden mechanisms that drive politics and political decision making in the United States. The systems and procedures of power in our democracy are often obscured from the view of the very people it’s meant to serve. This workshop addresses several key topics which are ignored by political science classes, the...

Narratives that circulate among the general population are potentially contagious and can be epidemic, just as disease viruses are.  The general public does not talk about pure economic theory much, but some rudimentary theories that guide their economic decisions are spread by their connection with viral human-interest narratives. With modern...

The Mahabharata is one of the great literary works of South Asian history. It narrates an epic story: the introduction to our supposed age, the Kali Yuga—one of downfall and decline, but also eventual rebirth. Preeminently a dialogic work, the Mahabharata remembers a past that requires constant re-narration, simultaneously...

Compared over the course of her life to Marlene Dietrich, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, a sphinx, a she-wolf, a “foreigner on earth,” and a hurricane, the Jewish Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector moved in mystery. The author of nine novels and a large body of short stories, journalism, and children’s...

Flying University is a re-education in hidden histories.    This talk series is named after the underground university in Russian-occupied Poland that taught subjects banned by the state-run schools. This rebel organization also educated women, who were barred from attending the official university, including Marie Curie. In that spirit,...

The borough of Queens has seen many historical and geographical changes throughout its illustrious history. Marshlands, woods, and farms gave way to factories, thriving communities, and the nation's premier arterial highway system.  Queens: Then & Now offers a rare historical look at New York City's largest borough, featuring many never-before-seen...

The Emergence of Sexuality: Foucault, Sexual Identities, and the Modern Self In his groundbreaking study, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1, philosopher and historian Michel Foucault provocatively argued that the thing we call sexuality, the supposed essence of our sexual core, our desires, our selves, is in fact “a name that can be given...