Community Calendar

This exhibition explores the enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian art and culture (dubbed “Egyptomania” by 19th-century Europeans) through a selection of paintings, prints, photographs, and decorative art from the early 19th century to the present day.

These objects, from the humble to the refined, from the shamelessly commercial to the Afrofuturist, represent the range of artistic responses to – and misconceptions about – ancient Egyptian visual culture.

Paradoxically, this enthusiasm for Egyptian symbols and motifs contributed to the erasure of the ancient Egyptian people themselves, as popular memory exoticized their beliefs and customs. The exhibition will examine how these objects reflect the phenomenon of “Egyptomania” over the last two centuries and will position their oversimplified or stereotypical narratives in conversation with current archaeological understandings of ancient Egyptian culture.

Course description:

College is a crucial institution in which our society works through its expectations for young people. This course explores the purposes of college education through the first great book on the philosophy of education, Plato’s Republic. We read The Republic in conversation with other thinkers including Aristotle, Confucius, John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. For the 325th anniversary of Yale’s founding, we also explore the changing conception of college education at Yale over the centuries and read some of the college’s and the university’s key founding documents. Themes include the development of personal character, participation in a community, preparation for citizenship, and conversation with others on intellectual matters. We also explore some of the social and economic functions of college education.

The 2026 DeVane Lecture series will be led by Pericles Lewis, Dean of Yale College and Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature

The class is free and open to the public and will run on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m., from September 2 to December 9, 2026.

This exhibition explores the enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian art and culture (dubbed “Egyptomania” by 19th-century Europeans) through a selection of paintings, prints, photographs, and decorative art from the early 19th century to the present day.

These objects, from the humble to the refined, from the shamelessly commercial to the Afrofuturist, represent the range of artistic responses to – and misconceptions about – ancient Egyptian visual culture.

Paradoxically, this enthusiasm for Egyptian symbols and motifs contributed to the erasure of the ancient Egyptian people themselves, as popular memory exoticized their beliefs and customs. The exhibition will examine how these objects reflect the phenomenon of “Egyptomania” over the last two centuries and will position their oversimplified or stereotypical narratives in conversation with current archaeological understandings of ancient Egyptian culture.

This illustrated talk introduces the sly, iconoclastic Victorian whose kinetic drawing style and keen feeling for life culminated in the invention of an art form the world has come to embrace: the children’s picture book.

Historian Leonard Marcus is the author of more than 25 books about children's books and the people who create them. Leonard is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, a founding trustee of the Eric Carle Museum and the curator of exhibitions at the New York Public Library, National Building Museum and Norman Rockwell Museum.

Visit the Events Calendar at ridgefieldlibrary.org for more information and to register.

Course description:

College is a crucial institution in which our society works through its expectations for young people. This course explores the purposes of college education through the first great book on the philosophy of education, Plato’s Republic. We read The Republic in conversation with other thinkers including Aristotle, Confucius, John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. For the 325th anniversary of Yale’s founding, we also explore the changing conception of college education at Yale over the centuries and read some of the college’s and the university’s key founding documents. Themes include the development of personal character, participation in a community, preparation for citizenship, and conversation with others on intellectual matters. We also explore some of the social and economic functions of college education.

The 2026 DeVane Lecture series will be led by Pericles Lewis, Dean of Yale College and Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature

The class is free and open to the public and will run on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m., from September 2 to December 9, 2026.

This exhibition explores the enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian art and culture (dubbed “Egyptomania” by 19th-century Europeans) through a selection of paintings, prints, photographs, and decorative art from the early 19th century to the present day.

These objects, from the humble to the refined, from the shamelessly commercial to the Afrofuturist, represent the range of artistic responses to – and misconceptions about – ancient Egyptian visual culture.

Paradoxically, this enthusiasm for Egyptian symbols and motifs contributed to the erasure of the ancient Egyptian people themselves, as popular memory exoticized their beliefs and customs. The exhibition will examine how these objects reflect the phenomenon of “Egyptomania” over the last two centuries and will position their oversimplified or stereotypical narratives in conversation with current archaeological understandings of ancient Egyptian culture.

Course description:

College is a crucial institution in which our society works through its expectations for young people. This course explores the purposes of college education through the first great book on the philosophy of education, Plato’s Republic. We read The Republic in conversation with other thinkers including Aristotle, Confucius, John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. For the 325th anniversary of Yale’s founding, we also explore the changing conception of college education at Yale over the centuries and read some of the college’s and the university’s key founding documents. Themes include the development of personal character, participation in a community, preparation for citizenship, and conversation with others on intellectual matters. We also explore some of the social and economic functions of college education.

The 2026 DeVane Lecture series will be led by Pericles Lewis, Dean of Yale College and Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature

The class is free and open to the public and will run on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m., from September 2 to December 9, 2026.

This exhibition explores the enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian art and culture (dubbed “Egyptomania” by 19th-century Europeans) through a selection of paintings, prints, photographs, and decorative art from the early 19th century to the present day.

These objects, from the humble to the refined, from the shamelessly commercial to the Afrofuturist, represent the range of artistic responses to – and misconceptions about – ancient Egyptian visual culture.

Paradoxically, this enthusiasm for Egyptian symbols and motifs contributed to the erasure of the ancient Egyptian people themselves, as popular memory exoticized their beliefs and customs. The exhibition will examine how these objects reflect the phenomenon of “Egyptomania” over the last two centuries and will position their oversimplified or stereotypical narratives in conversation with current archaeological understandings of ancient Egyptian culture.

Course description:

College is a crucial institution in which our society works through its expectations for young people. This course explores the purposes of college education through the first great book on the philosophy of education, Plato’s Republic. We read The Republic in conversation with other thinkers including Aristotle, Confucius, John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. For the 325th anniversary of Yale’s founding, we also explore the changing conception of college education at Yale over the centuries and read some of the college’s and the university’s key founding documents. Themes include the development of personal character, participation in a community, preparation for citizenship, and conversation with others on intellectual matters. We also explore some of the social and economic functions of college education.

The 2026 DeVane Lecture series will be led by Pericles Lewis, Dean of Yale College and Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature

The class is free and open to the public and will run on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m., from September 2 to December 9, 2026.

This exhibition explores the enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian art and culture (dubbed “Egyptomania” by 19th-century Europeans) through a selection of paintings, prints, photographs, and decorative art from the early 19th century to the present day.

These objects, from the humble to the refined, from the shamelessly commercial to the Afrofuturist, represent the range of artistic responses to – and misconceptions about – ancient Egyptian visual culture.

Paradoxically, this enthusiasm for Egyptian symbols and motifs contributed to the erasure of the ancient Egyptian people themselves, as popular memory exoticized their beliefs and customs. The exhibition will examine how these objects reflect the phenomenon of “Egyptomania” over the last two centuries and will position their oversimplified or stereotypical narratives in conversation with current archaeological understandings of ancient Egyptian culture.