As we mark the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, historian Laura Dassow Walls will discuss Henry David Thoreau’s mother, sisters, and aunts based on her book, Thoreau: A Life which the late Robert Richardson described as “the best all-around biography of Thoreau ever written.” Henry David Thoreau: A Life (2017) is the first full-length, comprehensive biography of Thoreau in a generation, and presents Thoreau as vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions—fully embedded in his place and time, yet speaking powerfully to the problems and perils of today. Please join us HERE.

Thanks to Thomas Jefferson’s fastidious record keeping, we know a great deal about the objects inside the house at Monticello during his lifetime, how they were used, and in some instances, even the exact spot they were placed. Since the creation of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923, curators have worked to return original objects to the house to better interpret the history of Monticello. Some items remain a mystery to this day. Join us for a special livestream to discuss how our curatorial team locates Jefferson-era objects centuries later, and some of their still “unsolved mysteries” HERE.

This beautiful film features moving wilderness footage from around the world, accompanied by the haunting music of the early-modern French master, Erik Satie. The melodies of these atmospheric pieces use deliberate, mild dissonances against the harmony to produce a piquant, melancholy effect. The compositions are accompanied by the composer’s performance notes to render each piece "painfully" (douloureux), "sadly" (triste), or "gravely" (grave), communicating an affect of pathos and nostalgia for lost origins. The three Gymnopédies and six Gnossiennes are presently available online HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Euripides’ dramatic work, “Andromache.” Achilles has killed Andromache's husband, Hector, and the Greeks have murdered her child. Andromache is made a slave of Achilles' son Neoptolemus, and she bears him a child. Years pass, and Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen. Now fearing again for the life of her child, Andromache seeks refuge in the temple of Thetis, and plots revenge. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest Katerina Ladianou. View this live and archived drama here.

The Raleigh Tavern is an analogy for the story of Colonial Williamsburg: the politics, the passion, and the people. In this livestream, we'll discuss how the Historic Trades, the curators, and our millwork shop came together to reinterpret the Raleigh Tavern's Public Dining Room HERE.

The 23rd Annual James Madison Lecture, presented by Gordon S. Wood, the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor Emeritus of History at Brown University. The Pulitzer Prize-winning professor speaks on the Revolutionary roots of the Civil War HERE.

Tu Weiming is the most famous Chinese Confucian thinker of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through his decades of study and teaching at Princeton University, the University of California, Harvard University, and the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University, Tu aims to renovate and enhance Confucianism through an encounter with Western social theory and Christian theology. From Tu’s perspective, the Confucian ideas of ren (“humaneness” or “benevolence”) and what he calls “anthropocosmic unity” can make powerful contributions to the resolution of issues facing the contemporary world. Please join us in viewing this modest testament of conviction and wisdom.

The National Archives Foundation and Colonial Williamsburg are partnering this #CivicSeason to bring you this virtual 4th of July program. Patrick Madden moderates a conversation with James Lafayette, an enslaved man who served the Continental Army as a spy. Join us to hear why Lafayette's battle for freedom didn't end with the Revolution HERE.

Thomas Jefferson described the Declaration of Independence as an “expression of the American mind.” Yet in the years since 1776, the ideals enshrined in the Declaration have inspired freedom movements all over the world. Indeed, today more than half of the nations on Earth have founding documents inspired by the American Declaration of Independence. Join us for a live Q&A with veteran Thomas Jefferson interpreter and Innermost House Founding Advisor, Bill Barker. Mr. Barker will appear out of character to discuss the many legacies of the Declaration, how its interpretation has evolved over time, and its continued importance today HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Aeschylus’ dramatic work, “Prometheus,” an austerely simple play rich with timely associations. The tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who defies the gods to give the gift of fire to mankind—“that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends”—for which he is bound in perpetual punishment. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest Joshua Billings. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this live and archived video here.

Spiritual faith has long been shaped by the lettering on a religion’s sacred texts. This is particularly the case with Judaism, so Craftsmanship Quarterly visited three Hebrew scribes — in Jerusalem, New York City, and the liberal enclave of Berkeley, California — to understand why such laborious traditions of handcraft continue in a digitalage. Please read the article here, and hear the associated podcast here.

The documentary ATHOS unveils one of Europe’s last remaining secrets: more than 2.000 monks live on the Holy Mountain Athos in Greece, constituting an independent republic devoted entirely to life-as-prayer. For the first time, a film team has gained access to this monastic republic, where they accompanied several monks in their daily struggle for divinity: their everyday lives in the secluded world are composed of praying, singing and working, but also of cooking and celebrating. The monks take the audience with them on their journey to divinity and give insight into their world of prayer and thought HERE.

Coopers make containers comprised of wooden staves held together by hoops. Barrels, buckets, tubs and butter churns are examples of the cooper's work. This livestream will look at the techniques and processes involved in making and assembling the component parts of a bucket HERE.

After slavery ended, freedom beckoned to those who had been enslaved at Monticello. But what freedom meant, and how it was pursued varied from person to person, and over time. Join us for a live Q&A with Senior Fellow of African American History, Niya Bates, and Public Historian and Manager of the Getting Word African American Oral History Project, Andrew Davenport. They will share stories about Monticello’s descendant community, the generations of descendants who fought to expand the definitions of freedom, and how the Getting Word project has indelibly shaped Monticello’s scholarship and interpretation HERE.

The Center for Constitutional Studies hosts Gordon Wood, Pulitzer Prize Winner and Professor at Brown University, during its event celebrating the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. Gordon Wood stresses the central idea of Magna Carta and the origins of the American constitution HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Euripides’ dramatic work, “The Trojan Women,” which tells of the awful fate of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked and their husbands killed, with their remaining families awaiting the subjection of slavery. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest, Robin Mitchell-Boyask. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this video here.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Aeschylus’ earliest surviving play, “The Persians,” a story of overweening pride, war, divine retribution, and lament. Hosted by Joel Christensen with special guest Erika Weiberg, this reading features actors Tim Delap, Tabatha Gale, Tony Jayawardena, Martin K. Lewis, and Evelyn Miller. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this video here.

America has a long history of protest, and how to protest “appropriately” is a hotly debated issue today. What did some of the nation’s founders think about the right way to protest? Join this many-sided and timely conversation HERE.

Church of the Wild places Thoreau’s intimacy with nature into a community of spiritual practice. With a fresh look at a beloved community larger than our own species, this book uncovers the wild roots of faith to undergird our commitment to a groaning and glorious earth. Simple practices of sacred reconnection with the land, waters and creatures of our home places invites us to care for the world by falling in love with it.  It is an invitation to trust the knowing deep within us that we are an important part of an interconnected relationship with All That Is. Please join the Zoom presentation HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Sophocles’ dramatic work, “Women at Trachis,” a story of jealousy, deceit, murder, and suicide, centering upon the death of Hercules. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guests Emma Pauly and Amy Pistone, and featuring actors Tim Delap, Mariah Gale, Tony Jayawardena, Martin K. Lewis, Anne Mason, and Evvy Miller. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this video here.

This season, the US: Past, Present, Future team has been discussing how we learn about American history. In this program, we will take a hard look at how we teach and talk about the American Revolution and our nation's founding HERE.

Brown University professor, Gordon Wood, discusses his new book, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, in which he distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era with historian Richard Brown of the University of Connecticut.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Euripides’ dramatic work, “Iphigenia in Aulis,” The play revolves around Greek leader Agamemnon and his decision to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis and allow his troops to set sail to battle against Troy, thus precipitating the epic histories we know as the Iliad and Odyssey. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guests Adam Barnard and Mat Carbon. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this video here.

Conserving architectural collections, separate from those still in Colonial Williamsburg buildings, takes specialists. Chris Swan, Senior Conservator of Furniture, and Dani Jaworski, Manager, Architectural Collections will share how these primarily wood objects are conserved, stored, and displayed. This program will also explore how these objects are used to reconstruct elements missing from other buildings, and what they can tell us about decorative and utilitarian woodworking in colonial Virginia homes HERE.

When Heracles was near his death, he wishes to be burned on a funeral pyre while still alive. In the play Philoctetes, Sophocles develops the myth in which no one but Philoctetes would light Heracles' funeral pyre, and in return for this favor Heracles gave Philoctetes his bow. Philoctetes leaves with the Greeks to participate in the Trojan War, but is bitten on the foot by a snake while walking on Chryse, a sacred ground. For this reason he is left by Odysseus and the Atreidai (sons of Atreus) on the desert island Lemnos, with tragic consequences .Stream this video here.

Join Colonial Williamsburg Milliners as they explore how a recent "Gown in a Day" project informs their understanding of their trade's history. Learn how recreating original objects heightens their understanding of an 18th century work environment and why shortcuts in sewing may have been a necessity to get the job done HERE.

This evocative collection by internationally acclaimed photographer Sally Mann is a masterful reinvention of the art of landscape photography. Sally Mann is among the most innovative and daring artists working with a camera today. DEEP SOUTH is a collection of her exquisite, ethereal landscape photographs, taken in the years since she rose to international fame with her groundbreaking book Immediate Family. Masterfully adapting technical methods employed by early masters of landscape photography, the photographs in DEEP SOUTH capture what Mann calls the radical light of the American South. Watch this short film of her startlingly powerful images here.

“From a distance, it is hard to tell whether the three figures walking the salt playa are human, bird or some other animal. Through binoculars, I see they are pelicans, juveniles, gaunt and emaciated without water or food. In feathered robes, they walk with the focus of fasting monks toward enlightenment or death. . .”

Read this prophetic call for wholeness and healing from Terry Tempest Williams HERE.

How did Indigenous people adapt and survive the onslaught of Indigenous warfare, European diseases, and population loss between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries? How did past generations of Indigenous women ensure that their culture would live on from one generation to the next so that their people would endure? Brooke Bauer, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and author of the book Becoming Catawba: Catawba Women and Nation Building, 1540-1840, joins us to investigate these questions and what we might learn from the Catawba HERE.

In 18th century Williamsburg, Sarah Trebell is keeper of the famed Raleigh Tavern. Sarah enjoys having her finger on the pulse of Williamsburg's social life, and at the Raleigh, she is at the heart of it all. However, after the repeal of the Stamp Act, there's change in the air. Join her as she discusses the changes and choices before her in autumn of 1766 HERE.