Videos and Recorded Programs

David Armitage, the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University, puts contemporary conflicts from Afghanistan to Syria into historical perspective and asks why it matters whether we call them “civil wars” instead of insurgencies, rebellions, or even revolutions.

Martha Howell, professor of history at Columbia University and the R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellow, discusses the meaning attached to goods—both humble and luxurious—during the Renaissance. The era is considered by many to be the first age of commercial globalism.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Louis Comfort Tiffany directed an artistic empire in the design and creation of stained glass windows and lamps, blown glass vases, and other objects of luxury. But his innovations in glass mosaics represented perhaps his most expressive mastery of the medium. Kelly Conway, curator of American glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York,...

Artists Soyoung Shin and Juliana Wisdom, two of the seven artists whose work is featured in the current exhibition COLLECTION/S, will discuss the influence of 18th-century French history and decorative arts on their work. The discussion is moderated by Jenny Watts, curator of photography and visual culture at The Huntington, and Catherine Hess, chief curator of European art.

Bill Sherman, director of the Warburg Institute in London, delivers the inaugural annual lecture honoring David Zeidberg, recently retired Avery Director of the Library. In his presentation, Sherman traces the modern field of cryptography back to the Renaissance and asks what role the invention of printing played in the keeping of secrets. This talk is part of the Zeidberg Lecture in the History of the...

For more than 50 years, the Portland Japanese Garden has been a haven of serenity and an important center for Japanese culture. Join Sadafumi Uchiyama, Garden Curator of the Portland Japanese Garden, as he reflects on their recent expansion and newly founded institute for teaching garden history, design, construction, and maintenance. This talk is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture Series at The Huntington.

John Crichton, proprietor of the Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco, shares the story of pioneering entrepreneur Anton Roman (1828-1903), who came to California from Bavaria in 1849 to make his fortune in the gold fields, then converted his gold into books and became one of the most important booksellers in the West. This program is the Book Club of California’s inaugural Kenneth Karmiole...

Leading experts on 18th and 19th-century theatre explore the implications of statutory theatre censorship as Britain grappled with issues of modernity, race, gender, and religion during a period of imperial expansion and conflict.