Community Calendar

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.

Join us for the Keynote Lecture with Katherine A. Schwab, PhD (Professor emerita, Art History & Visual Culture)!

Join us for the Livestream Keynote Lecture with Katherine A. Schwab, PhD (Professor emerita, Art History & Visual Culture)!

As part of the Fairfield Museum and History Center's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, join us for a timely and vital conversation exploring practical ways we can build a new, collective commitment to democratic citizenship, using the landmark report “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century” as a starting point.

Panelists will include: Stephen Heintz, President and CEO of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Global Commission on Democracy; CT Secretary of State and national voting rights advocate Stephanie Thomas; David McCullough III, founder of the American Exchange Project, an innovative program that builds connections between young Americans from different backgrounds; and Fairfield University’s Aaron Weinstein, PhD, assistant professor of politics—a scholar of the intersection of secular and religious thought in American politics. Reception to follow.

The Fairfield Museum and History Center presents this event in partnership with Fairfield University’s Center for Arts & Minds.

Go Behind the Headlines

What was really happening inside Israel’s war room after October 7?

Join us for a fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation with Elliot Kaufman, Wall Street Journal editorial board member and co-author of the new book 'In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel’s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis'.

Drawing on extraordinary access to senior Israeli and U.S. officials, Elliot will take us inside the leaders, debates and decisions that have shaped Israel’s war and explore what they mean for Israel and the Middle East going forward.

The conversation will be followed by audience Q&A.

$30 per person • Includes a copy of 'In the War Room'

A one-day interdisciplinary symposium examining the visual construction of antiquity through archaeology, art history, and photography.

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.

Open to All, With Associate Curator Kaitlin Halloran

October 16, 3 PM - 4 PM

Free for Members | $10 Guests of Member | $15 for Resident Benefits PassHolders | $30 Adults | Free for Students & Children

Join us for a special tour of Tony Bechara: An Artist of Many Worlds, led by Kaitlin Halloran, Associate Curator and Publications Manager.

Advance registration is recommended. Limited spaces will be available at the door.

About the Exhibition
Tony Bechara: An Artist of Many Worlds is the first-ever comprehensive survey of Puerto Rican artist Tony Bechara, including works from his later years and exploring his career-long dedication to color theory and abstraction. Born in Puerto Rico and based in New York City, Bechara (1942–2025) drew on his bilingual and bicultural upbringing, his studies in law and international relations, his long stays in Europe and the Hamptons, and his characteristic, enduring curiosity to become a man of many worlds—seeking light and illumination in far corners of the globe and across its diverse cultures.

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.