The Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum is taking the chill out of the winter season with programs that can be enjoyed from the comfort of home.

The museum is offering weekly virtual lectures throughout the rest of January and all of February covering topics ranging from portraiture and selfie culture to a talk by journalist-turned-author Julian Sher.

First up in the series is “The Art of Portraiture, Our Best Face Forward,” presented by Debra Antoncic, director and curator for RiverBrink Art Museum, on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 11 a.m.

An art historian, Antoncic will illustrate how the impulse to capture a likeness of an individual has a history dating back thousands of years. 

“Your portrait told the world all about you,” said Antoncic. “It showed your status, wealth, personality, and a host of other details.” 

On Jan. 31, Sonia de Lazzer, an art history professor at Brock University, will look at the “selfie obsession” in contemporary culture, and its connections with technology, psychology and society, from capturing our image on earth-orbiting spacewalks to the massive self-documentation on social media.

On Feb. 7, Sher, a journalist who worked for the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, and was a senior producer for the CBC’s The Fifth Estate, will discuss his new novel, “North Star.”

It tells the story of the Canadians and a handful of Confederate agents who played a much darker role in supporting the enslaved South than history books note, and their participation in the formation of plots against former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln.

Additional lectures in the series include “Ordnance Boundary Stones: Updates and Restoration” (Feb. 14), “The Borderland: Black Agency and Resistance Between Two Nations” (Feb. 21) and “Historically Hysterical” (Feb. 28).

Registration is required. To register, visit notlmuseum.ca or call 905-468-3912.