Come hear Anna Rudolph's presentation on Queen Radegund (520AD – 587AD) – a royal sainted lady of Thuringia. Radegund was a princess and a war captive who became the unwilling queen of the Frankish Kingdom and one of the most beloved Saints of France. Radegund, an extreme ascetic, was widely believed to have the gift […]
In this talk, Dr. Erika Rappaport, Professor and Chair of the Department of History at UCSB and historian of British consumer culture, explores how Queen Victoria became the first media monarch. Queen Victoria was unmatched in bringing the monarchy into the modern age, becoming the subject of intense media attention, criticism and adoration. In her […]
The wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in June 2016 stimulated a new round of interest in and curiosity about the concept of “royalness.” Visitors to the Karpeles Library asked such questions as “will Meghan Markle ever be considered a queen,” “who gives titles of nobility” (princes, princesses, dukes, earls, etc.), and “how did […]
During the Reformation, the Catholic Church suffered a crisis in one of its oldest and most powerful institutions: belief in the saints. To support the veneration of these individuals, canonization officials turned, it would seem paradoxically, to medical science. Canon lawyers and physicians thought that medicine could be used to prove miracles. The category of […]
A lecture by Brendan Burke, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada. Excavations at ancient Eleon, located 15 km east of Thebes in central Greece, have revealed a center of vibrant activity throughout the Late Bronze Age, starting with a burial complex of the Late Helladic […]
Speaker: Goran Nikšić is the City Archaeologist and Architect for City of Split in Croatia (Service for the Old City Core), and the Senior Lecturer on architectural conservation at the University of Split. He holds his degrees from the University of Zagreb (Ph.D.), the University of York, and the University of Belgrade. His areas of […]
In this talk, Professor Erika Rappaport of the UCSB History Department explores how tea shops emerged in the 18th century and came to be defined as “women’s spaces” in 19th century and early 20th century Europe and North America -- but as “male spaces” in parts of Africa and South Asia. These institutions helped build […]
About the Talk Early in the sixth century BC, a group from the Greek city-state of Phokaia established a trading post on the Catalan coast not far from present-day Barcelona. It eventually became a major military base and trading center for the expansion of the Roman empire. Using the work of archaeologists supplemented by his own […]
Speaker: Dr. John McK. Camp Director of the Athenian Agora Excavations Event Description: Ancient Athens is generally regarded as the birthplace of the world's first democracy. The administrative center of Athenian democracy was the Agora, the main square of the city, which has been under excavation for the past eighty-five years. Here have been […]
Speaker: Stephanie Dalley Oxford University Archaeological Institute of America Norton Lecturer Event Description: Babylon’s Hanging Garden is the only one of the original seven wonders to have been dismissed as imaginary. Neither archaeologists nor Assyriologists could find evidence for it, and the Greek sources describing it are centuries later than its supposed existence. An […]