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.

Janinehas curated exhibitions, lectured, and written widely on the topics of silver, ceramics, and dining in England and America.

Jeannine is an independent curator working in craft, design, and American culture.

Journalist Jon Gertner explains the origins and unique capabilities of Bell Laboratories, AT&T’s vaunted R&D organization. The work at the labs led to many of the most revolutionary technologies of the 20th Century, including the transistor, the laser, digital communications, the solar cell, and communications satellites.

Jon is a writer for the New York Times Magazine and is an editor at Fast Company magazine.

After Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Sarah Longwell did what she's done nearly every week for the past eight years: She sat down with voters. Now she offers a playbook for building a coalition big enough, bold enough, and tough enough to defeat authoritarian populism for good.

Virginia Eubanks comes to Cambridge for a discussion of her new memoir, "A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love, Care, and Survival," a moving story of her own efforts to survive caregiving, trauma, love, and the systems seemingly set up to fail us.

"Impossible Choices" focuses on the practical implications of high-risk complications for people who are pregnant or considering pregnancy—including conditions such as pre-eclampsia, premature membrane rupture, or birth defects—especially in states now under abortion bans. And because maternal fetal medicine overlaps with other medical fields as pregnant patients struggle with, for instance, kidney disease, lupus, diabetes, and cancer, the book also addresses a wide array of medical questions and complications.

Zirin shows Zinn’s presence on the great canvases of the 20th century, from the Depression to World War II to the Civil Rights Movement to the war in Vietnam, all the way until his death in 2010.