The Captivating Rhine: A River Cruise from Amsterdam to Basel

Martha Easton is associate professor of art history and program director of museum studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she teaches a wide variety of courses ranging from prehistory to the present day. As a current professor and former museum educator for the Met Cloisters in New York, Martha enjoys nothing more than looking at and discussing art and architecture with other people. She earned her PhD from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts with a focus on late antique and medieval art, a minor in Japanese art, and a certificate in curatorial studies (the latter offered jointly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Martha has traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, and spent six years living and working in Japan between college and graduate school. She has published widely on a variety of topics, including medieval illuminated manuscripts; gender and hagiography; “courtly love” ivories; the collecting of medieval art by museums and private collectors; and medievalism, or the appropriation of the Middle Ages in later periods.

Erik Grimmer-Solem is the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Professor in the College of Social Studies and professor of history at Wesleyan University. He received his PhD in economic and social history from Nuffield College, Oxford University and was a postdoctoral Harper Fellow at the University of Chicago before joining Wesleyan’s history department in 2002. He is the author of The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany 1864-1894 and Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919, along with more than 40 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews that have appeared in such journals as the American Historical Review, German History, History and Theory, Journal of World History, and several German publications.

Erik has received awards from prestigious organizations such as the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, as well as two distinguished teaching prizes from Wesleyan University. His research on the Wehrmacht’s involvement in the Holocaust was discussed widely in the German news media, including in the national newsweekly Der Spiegel. Its subsequent discussion in German parliament culminated in the renaming of a military base in 2015. He is currently writing a book entitled Ukrainian Barbarossa: The Crimes of the Wehrmacht and the Politics of Remembrance in Contemporary Germany.

Sonia Schott is an international journalist and strategic communications expert with more than 25 years of experience reporting on global politics, diplomacy, and international relations. Her background spans broadcast, print, and digital journalism, with focus on transatlantic relations, U.S.–Latin America affairs, and European political culture.

With a multicultural background—a German father and Peruvian mother—Sonia was born in Venezuela, became a naturalized US citizen, and has held representative roles in the Netherlands, Poland, Panama, Germany, and Russia. She holds a degree in social communications sciences and a master's in law and international relations. She was awarded a scholarship by the Hanns Seidel Foundation to pursue political studies in Munich, Germany, further strengthening her academic background.

Sonia has also volunteered extensively at the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery and the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Her roles have included serving as an information specialist and later as a docent for the Smithsonian Information Center at the Castle, where she supported visitor engagement. Along with her native Spanish, she is fluent in English and German.

David Scott Silverberg is an expert in earth sciences, geography, and conservation biology. Born in New York, David has lived most of his life abroad, working in more than 125 countries—including 16 years in Norway, seven years in Germany, 10 years in northern Italy, and four years in Morocco. He is an active mountaineer and has explored the Himalaya, Andes, Atlas, Alps, and beyond.

A fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, David is a passionate experiential educator who has designed and taught graduate and undergraduate field programs around the world for numerous universities. He served as executive director of Earthwatch Institute Center for Field Research, and helped launch Americorps as the associate director for environment programs at the White House. David received his PhD from MIT and his post-doc from Harvard University.

With support from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, and the American Alpine Club, David has produced numerous peer-reviewed papers on the formation of the Alps and the Himalaya. His current research investigates the geographic determinants of culture and history as well as the effects of biodiversity loss and changes in climate, land cover, and oceans. He has published many articles and books about the Himalaya, Alps, and Apennines, covering topics ranging from ecology to bridge engineering to wine and cuisine.

Professor Thomas Bremer is a German who has lived and worked in different parts of the country, from Bavaria to Westphalia to Berlin. He has long been fascinated by the variety of traditions, lifestyles, and religious experience in German-speaking lands, which also influenced his teaching of Church History and Eastern Churches Studies at the University of Münster. His publications include a dozen books and many articles on issues including ecumenism, peace-building in the former Yugoslavia, and religion as a factor in conflicts. He has been awarded research grants and fellowships from institutions including the Kennan Institute in Washington, DC, and the Boris Jordan Center at NYU. Prof. Bremer has served as a consultant for various bodies on questions dealing with Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well as political and societal processes in Germany and Europe.

In addition to his academic career, Prof. Bremer has closely followed German history, culture, and contemporary developments from the time when the Wall was still standing. As someone who has spent a large amount of time in the U.S., he sees the specifics of his home country in contrast to North America. He enjoys music, especially opera, and attentively follows events in German, European, and world politics. He is eager to share his fields of expertise and his experiences with the Smithsonian guests.

Tim Richardson is a leading historian of gardens, art, architecture, and food and the author of more than 25 acclaimed books, including Great Gardens of America, The English Landscape Garden, and Sweets: A History of Candy. After studying English literature at Oxford, Tim began his career at Country Life magazine, where he became the gardens editor and theater critic for 23 years. He went on to write for a wide range of publications, as a long-time columnist for the Daily Telegraph, landscape editor for Wallpaper,* and contributor to Literary Review and the Financial Times. He is currently art critic at The Idler magazine.   

Tim is known for his witty and sometimes irreverent style; a collection of his garden journalism was entitled You Should Have Been Here Last Week, because, he says, that is what garden owners always seem to say. This mischievous spirit led him to found the Chelsea Fringe Festival in 2012—as an adjunct to the famous Chelsea Flower Show but with an emphasis on community gardening and artistic happenings. It has been the platform for more than 2,500 events in some 22 countries. Tim volunteers as an advisor to the National Trust in the United Kingdom and works as a consultant on historic gardens and houses.  

As a visiting professor at Vienna University for several years, Tim taught landscape art—and enjoyed the cafes and cakes! He now teaches a master’s course in landscape history at London University; and wrote an online course on the topic that is taught at Oxford University's continuing education department. Tim lives in London and Devon with his wife, Claire, and enjoys competing in the sport of fencing. 

Ulrich Kamp is professor and chair of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan–Dearborn. A native of Germany, Ulrich trained as a geographer in Berlin and began his career as an urban and regional planner there before embarking on a career in academia. He has taught at the University of Nebraska–Omaha, DePaul University in Chicago, and the University of Montana in Missoula. His research focuses on geomorphology, glaciology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and natural hazards in mountain environments. Ulrich has designed and taught more than 30 different courses in geography, earth sciences, and environmental sciences. His innovative teaching portfolio includes the study abroad program Future Cities Live in Amsterdam and Berlin, as well as Sustainable Cities, a course he also taught at Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara in Mexico.

Ulrich has received fellowships that have taken him to the United States, Germany, and Mongolia. As an environmental consultant, he has worked with the World Bank, USAID, and several German federal and state agencies. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the international journal Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk. An avid traveler, Ulrich has explored much of the world and continues to visit Germany as often as possible.

Barbara J. Whitehead is the A. W. Crandall Professor of History at DePauw University and former chair of the history department. She earned her BA in history at Harvard University and her PhD from Bryn Mawr College. This educational background fostered a love of early modern Europe that has been the focus of her teaching and writing for over thirty years. At DePauw, Barbara has developed a broad spectrum of courses centered on European history ranging from the Viking Age and Crusades to the European witch hunts, the French Revolution, and the history of happiness. Her research in intellectual history has led to an edited volume on early modern women’s education and publications on forgotten figures of the 18th-century Enlightenment.

In addition to leading more than 15 academic tours of Europe, Barbara has served as the on-site director of the American Colleges of the Midwest Central European Studies Program in the Czech Republic, where she taught European history. She also taught in the Danish International Studies Program in Copenhagen as a visiting professor. In addition to living in the Czech Republic and Denmark, Barbara has also lived in Rome and Paris.

Dr. Amanda Luyster is a distinguished medieval art historian and professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her work offers new perspectives on the cross-cultural nature of medieval visual culture, specifically the interactions between western Europe and the Islamic and Byzantine worlds and the movement of silk across broad global networks. 

After graduating from Amherst College summa cum laude and receiving her PhD from Harvard in 2003, she has gone on to secure prestigious fellowships and grants, including support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Paul Mellon Centre, the American Philosophical Society, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. She has been invited to speak at Harvard University, Cambridge University, the University of Oxford, London’s Institute of Historical Research, Yale University’s Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and other locations from Boston to China. Her work has led to international recognition, including election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) in London and the Medieval Academy of America’s 2024 Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medieval Research. 

Amanda is also dedicated to public-facing scholarship and media outreach. Her research has been featured in the London-based newspaper The Independent, The Times of Israel, and Harvard Magazine, and she has been interviewed on widely followed podcasts such as Gone Medieval (History Hit).  She has lived and worked in multiple European countries and loves travel and photography.

Benjamin Sutherland writes for The Economist, reporting on military and defense issues as well as energy, business, science, and political culture. He edited Modern Warfare, Intelligence and Deterrence, an Economist book on how advances in weaponry and spycraft are reshaping global security, and wrote a chapter on the future of warfare for the book Megatech: Technology in 2050. He also contributes to Economist podcasts.

Benjamin periodically teaches undergraduate, graduate and MBA courses in geopolitics and international business as an adjunct. In recent years, he has taught at HEC-Paris; the Paris School of Business; the Zagreb School of Economics and Management; and, in Italy, H-Farm College and Scuola Holden. Earlier in his career, he wrote for Newsweek and was a senior editor at COLORS magazine. He also served as a staff screenwriter with Cinemarket Productions in Paris, and co-directed the Sundance Channel documentary Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man.

As an expert for Smithsonian Journeys, Benjamin has focused on Europe, the Persian Gulf, and the broader Middle East. His lectures cast light on a broad range of geopolitical topics, from Central Europe’s reemergence as a geopolitical pivot in the struggle between authoritarian states and free societies to Russia’s grand strategy and its geographic roots, to clashes in civilizational visions for world order. His lectures are richly illustrated with insights from his reporting for The Economist in more than a dozen countries. An avid traveler, Sutherland speaks French and Italian fluently and is proficient in Spanish.

Dr. Ralph L. DeFalco III is a historian, a writer, a lecturer, and a retired national security intelligence professional whose career spanned five decades. He achieved the rank of captain during 25 years in the United States Navy and later served as a civilian intelligence professional on the Pentagon staff of the director of naval intelligence. Ralph is a graduate and former faculty member of the National Intelligence University and the College of Naval Command and Staff of the U.S. Naval War College, where he served as Fleet Professor. He earned his doctoral degree at Georgetown University.

Ralph has studied and published widely on topics ranging from military history and geopolitics to foreign affairs and applied ethics.  He is a contributing author to the two-volume work, The Central Intelligence Agency: An Encyclopedia of Covert Ops, Intelligence Gathering, and Spies and his numerous essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in various websites and publications, including Naval History Magazine, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, National Strategy Forum Review, and H-net.

Dr. Michael Bruening studies the history of religion in Europe, particularly during the period of the Protestant Reformation. He is currently the president of the Society for Reformation Research and a professor of history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, where he teaches classes on European history from ancient Rome to the Enlightenment. His research has taken him to France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and he has been an invited speaker in Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, and Lyon, as well as in Paris, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His most recent book, Refusing to Kiss the Slipper, was published by Oxford University Press.

Michael is also a semi-professional singer, guitarist, and songwriter who plays regularly at local wineries and pubs. His YouTube parody of “I Will Survive” went viral during the 2020 pandemic.

Gertrud Huber grew up in Marktl, Germany on the Austrian border. Her father bought her first zither when she was just two months old. Early on, she played small performances with the zither, harp, and the accordion for the Schuhplattler folk music group of the local Bavarian traditional costume association. She later earned music diplomas for zither, harp, dulcimer, and jazz clarinet from the University of Munich and a PhD in musicology from the University of Vienna. Gertrud is a passionate musician and pedagogue, folk music researcher and ethnomusicologist, performing and conducting research all over the world.

Today, she teaches numerous courses at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the MDW, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Gertrud‘s research ranges widely, with particular emphasis on European and Alpine folk music and zither instruments. She is an active performer and directs several ensembles. Her many performances include playing the zither solo from “Tales of the Vienna Woods“ by Johann Strauss with the New York Philharmonics Orchestra under Kurt Masur.