Tenesha Carter Johnson is a curator and cultural historian, with a particular investment in American quilt and textile histories. Her work explores the relationship between material culture and public history, wherein quilts serve as records of lived experience and historical intervention. She holds a BA in Art History from Spellman College and MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from Bard Graduate Center. Her research has contributed to leading institutions and digital resources such as the Museum of African American History, Boston & Nantucket; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture; and, The Fashion & Race Database.

Focusing on native materials such as bulrush and wampum, the talk will show how plants and shells are not simply resources, but living connections to land, water, craft, and identity.

The Saturday Evening Girls’ club was established in 1899 to provide cultural activities for Italian and Jewish immigrant girls who lived in the tenements of Boston’s North End. In 1908, the reform-minded club leaders founded the Paul Revere Pottery to provide the girls with a clean and educational venue in which to earn money.

Mark Peterson, historian of early America, and the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of History at Yale University, will join Boston College to discuss his recent work, "The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History".

Photographic artist Marsha Wilcox, astrophysicist Sara Seager, and moderator Jennifer Roberts explore light and darkness from strikingly different perspectives.

We provide provocative conversations between artists, scientists, and the public. Open access to ideas at the cutting-edge of innovation and discovery. Sparking collaborations, synergy and the development of future projects with the creative, academic, and business communities.

This year, Congress is proposing the Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-Term Development for America’s 250th Act, or BUILD Act, which would cut the already disproportionately dwarfed (compared to roads and highways) funding for transit across the country. Massachusetts stands to lose about 18% of its current funding level. Jeremy Siegel, host of In Common, moderates a discussion offering a breakdown of federal funding for transportation, its current constraints, what it takes for us to build world-class transit,

According to research, public trust in the Supreme Court is near a three-decade low. Most Americans, across party lines, still say justices shouldn't let politics shape their rulings, and most also believe, increasingly, that they do. Rachel A. Shelden, author of “The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History,” speaks at the Cambridge Forum.

Rachel A. Shelden is a historian of nineteenth-century America and Associate Professor of History at Penn State University, where she also directs the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center. Her research explores the intersections of politics, constitutionalism, law, and slavery, with a particular focus on the role of personal relationships and political networks.

Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere House, hosts two noted silver experts for a thoughtful discussion of Revere as perhaps America’s best-known silversmith.