Videos and Recorded Programs

Carol Brash examines four different representations of the Garden of Solitary Delight (Dule yuan), built in the 11th century by scholar-official Sima Guang.

Marja K. Seidel, postdoctoral research associate with Carnegie Observatories, discusses her quest to understand dark matter and also shares her experiences bringing astronomy education to remote and under-served communities around the world.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson discusses his new book, To the Edges of the Earth: 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration, and shares the story of three simultaneous and groundbreaking expeditions that pushed to the furthest reaches of the globe and brought within human reach a complete accounting of all the Earth’s surface.

Steven Shapin, the Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, draws attention to the widely held view that artistic productions are “things made up” and scientific knowledge consists of “things found out.” How stable and coherent are such presumptions? Shapin discusses examples drawn from 19th-century biology and from 20th-century and contemporary art.

Mark Valeri, the Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how new ideas of moral virtue and political reasonableness shaped Protestant approaches to religious choice in colonial America.

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, art historian and journalist, reveals the scholarship and science behind Project Blue Boy, The Huntington’s two-year effort to conserve one of Western Art’s greatest masterpieces in this annual Founder’s Day lecture.

Yong Chen, professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, discusses the historical forces that turned Chinese food, a cuisine once widely rejected by Americans, into one of the most popular ethnic foods in the U.S.

Through the pioneering work of collectors and nurserymen, many new Japanese species were introduced to the American gardening public in the late 19th century. Peter Del Tredici, Senior Research Scientist, Emeritus, of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, will examine the history behind these early introductions, some of which had a profound impact on both cultivated and wild landscapes across America.