Videos and Recorded Programs

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.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the 300th Anniversary University Professor of History at Harvard University, shares stories from the remarkable diary of Caroline Crosby. The wife of a Mormon missionary, Crosby reached California with her husband in 1850 en route to a posting in the South Pacific, and later lived among “saints and strangers” in San Jose, San Francisco, and San Bernardino. This talk...

Vanessa Zoltan (co-host) and Ariana Nedelman (producer) of the celebrated podcast, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, along with Huntington curator Vanessa Wilkie, discuss how media format shapes message. The podcast team discusses why they choose to do their program as a podcast (as opposed to a reading group, blog, or book), the opportunities of this media, as well as its limitations. This program was...

Alejandro de Ávila Blomberg of the Oaxaca Ethnobotanical Garden and Oaxaca Textile Museum will explore the historical and cultural significance of this natural crimson dye. Used from antiquity, cochineal became Mexico’s second-most valued export after silver during the Spanish colonial period.