Courses: Spring   

**This class will be taught In-Person**

No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as fourteenth-century poet Petrarch remarked, "another world." This course will examine how Venice's role as a major trading hub shaped its art, with influences from Northern Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. In conjunction with the exhibit Monet in Venice at the Legion of Honor Museum March 21–July 26, 2026, this course will study Venetian history, society and culture through the visual arts.

Week One: Venice and the Ottoman Empire

From the 15th to the 18th century Venice—a city built on hundreds of small islands off the coast of northeast Italy—stood at the crossroads of a vast trade network connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe. To maintain its status as an international emporium, with markets full of spices, ceramics, metalwork, textiles, and other goods, Venice acquired overseas territories to its east and cultivated close ties with the Ottomans, whose empire became the wealthiest and most powerful in the Eastern Mediterranean after their conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and widespread expansion in the sixteenth century.

Week Two: Venice in the Renaissance

Venice's strong maritime trade and political stability fostered an environment where art and culture could thrive. Venice was the richest, most powerful, and most populous Italian city and controlled significant territories on the mainland. Venetian painting in the 15th and 16th centuries was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting. Prominent Venetian artists of this period include the Bellini family (Giovanni, Gentile, Jacopo), Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto.

Week Three: Venice and the Grand Tour

The Grand Tour involved young, wealthy Europeans, mainly British, traveling across the continent in the 17th to early 19th century to experience art, architecture, and culture, particularly from classical antiquity and the Renaissance. Venice was a key stop on the Grand Tour and "vedute" (views) of Venetian cityscapes by Canaletto, Guardi and Carlevaris were popular souvenirs for Grand Tourists, who wanted to remember their travels and display their experiences. Vedute typically depicted recognizable Venetian landmarks and buildings, often with a focus on architectural details.

Week Four: J. M. W. Turner and Venice

Turner made three trips to Venice, in the late summers of 1819, 1833, and 1840. Late in his career Venice served as a mystical muse for Turner, and the artist produced dozens of watercolor and oil paintings that explored the expressive effects of air, light, and water on the city’s architecture and waterways. Turner's Venetian paintings were not simply literal depictions of the city. He reimagined and reinterpreted the scenes, focusing on conveying the sublime and the emotional impact of the place. He often manipulated perspective and scale to enhance the drama and sense of space in his paintings. Monet first saw Turner’s work in London in 1870 and the English artist remained a significant artistic reference point for him.

Week Five: John Singer Sargent and Venice

John Singer Sargent was captivated by Venice and visited the city frequently between 1898 and 1913. In his oils and watercolors of Venice from the early 1880s, Sargent avoided the picturesque and touristic views painted by many of his contemporaries. He often sketched from a gondola, capturing views from a low vantage point, emphasizing the reflections on the water and the architecture. Sargent also focused on smaller, less touristy scenes, like back streets and alleyways, showing Venetians engaged in everyday activities.

Week Six: Monet and Venice

Although Venice was a popular destination for European and American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Claude Monet only made one trip to the city in his lifetime. He once claimed that Venice was “too beautiful to be painted,” a challenge he embraced by creating an extraordinary sequence of works depicting the Italian city. Where others focused on Venice’s busy streets and canals, Monet’s interpretations are devoid of human presence. Instead, he captures the interplay of architecture with color and light, enveloping viewers in the city’s distinctive atmosphere. During his autumn 1908 visit he made a series of 37 paintings depicting the city’s inimitable views.

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

The first newly invented cameras arrived in the US already in the 1840s, and by the beginning of the 20th C photography had become a most powerful, versatile creative medium which started to shape our lives and sense of identity. This course will focus on 6 important groups of photographers who were pioneering in their field, using the camera to create modern art, to compliment literature, but also to bring about social change and document the complexities of life in our nation. 

Week by Week Outline

Week 1 - Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, Alice Austen ; photography as a tool to document immigrant life an bring about social change 

Week 2 - Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Paul Strand – Gallery 291 and the new field of art photography 

Week 3 - Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans; photography during the Depression Era 

Week 4 - Group f/64, Ansel Adams, Immogen Cunningham, Edward Weston – West Coast landscape and art photography 

Week 5 - The New York Photo League, including Sid Grossman, Lisette Model, Weegee, Jerome Liebling, Ruth Orkin and Berenice Abbott; socially engaged photography by an influential organization

Week 6 - Seminal Post WWII publications: Robert Frank, The Americans ; William Klein, New York ; Roy de Carava and Langston Hughs, The Sweet Flypaper of Youth ; Bruce Davidson, The Jokers ; Gordon Parks, Harlem Gang Leader

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

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Siberia constitutes three quarters of Russia’s territory, but only a quarter of the  country’s population lives there. Yet, the role of Siberia in making Russia a large and wealthy empire should not be underestimated. In this new course, we will talk about Siberia’s role in the rise and possibly imminent dismantling of Russia as a unified state; Siberia’s economic importance, both historically and today; the region’s indigenous peoples and their cultures; its role as a penal colony throughout history and how that function transformed the region; its importance for climate change and environmental issues; and the relations between Russia and China. 

Week by Week Outline 

1. Introduction. Physical Geography.  

2. Russians and Indigenous Peoples in Siberia 

3. Languages, Genes, Religions  

4. Russian Settlement of Siberia

5. Soviet History of Siberia 

6. Siberia Today 

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

Since the dawn of Cinema, both the Hollywood and International film communities have concerned themselves with the harmonious continuation of time-honored democratic traditions. The 1930s and 40s saw the world’s population nearly succumb to the devastating effects of a catastrophic global Depression, the rise of a European dictator triggering a second World War, and the terrifying prospects of sweeping totalitarianism in the atomic aftermath of that war.

This six-week course will focus primarily on the spirit of resistance as depicted by filmmakers willing to address this harrowing crisis. Among the dozen or more films from this historically important period we will watch and discuss are Michael Curtiz’s 1942 classic CASABLANCA, a film with much more on its mind than the simple problems of lovers during wartime, Andre De Toth’s rarely seen but brilliant 1944 film NONE SHALL ESCAPE that boldly predicted an Allied victory and the creation of a tribunal to deal with Nazi war criminals, and Chaplin’s devastating 1940 satire of Hitler, THE GREAT DICTATOR. Other titles in this course include: Ernst Lubitsch’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE (42), Archie Mayo’s BLACK LEGION (37), Rossellini’s OPEN CITY: ROME (46), Robert Bresson’s A MAN ESCAPED (56), Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD (57), and Kevin Brownlow’s disturbing speculative 1964 film IT HAPPENED HERE.

All films used for this course can be easily streamed via the usual sources or viewed on free links provided by the instructor.

**This class will be taught In-Person**

**Note that this class will skip April 21 and end on May 26**

A study of selected films of Shakespeare plays, with attention to how movies can add to our understanding and enjoyment of the Bard. We will watch selected clips in class, comparing them to each other and to the play's text and exploring how the magic of film can enhance the text with location shooting, camera effects, star power, sound, etc. After surveying the history of Shakespeare film, we will focus on Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Henry V. No expertise in film or Shakespeare is required for this course.  

Week by Week Outline 

1. Getting Started: a survey of Shakespeare on film from silent films to the present day, with an introduction to how we look closely at selected scenes. 

2. Filming Fantasy: Midsummer Night's Dream, with the 1935 Max Reinhardt production (James Cagney and Mickey Rooney) and the 1999 Michael Hoffman version (Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer). 

3. Epic Battlefields: Henry V, focusing on films by Laurence Olivier (1944) and Kenneth Branagh (1989). 

4. "Star"-Crossed Lovers: Romeo and Juliet in versions by Franco Zeffirelli (1968) and Baz Luhrmann (1996, with Leonardo di Caprio and Claire Danes).  

5. The Film's the Thing: Hamlet, with Oliver (1948), Grigori Kosintsev's Soviet version (1964, music by Shostakovich) and Tony Richardson's from 1969 (Nigel Williamson and Marianne Faithfull). 

6. To be, and then To be, again: Hamlet closer to our own time—Zeffirelli's 1990 action movie (Mel Gibson and Glenn Close), Michael Almerayda's millenial Hamlet (2000, Ethan Hawke), and two more recent takes starring, respectively, David Tennant and Benedict Cumberbatch.  

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

The dervishes had nothing, only a robe and a begging bowl, yet they twirled in ecstasy. Today, with all our conveniences, we often struggle to touch joy. What did the mystics know that we’ve forgotten? This course invites you into the living wisdom of Rumi, Hafez, Khayyam, and other classical Persian writers who turned longing, loss, and love into luminous verse. Through original translations from Persian, rich cultural context, and open-hearted dialogue, we’ll explore how these centuries-old voices can awaken meaning and connection in our own lives. Come curious. Come weary. Come with wonder. The poems and stories are waiting to speak, and perhaps even to transform. 

Week 1: Why the Dervish Danced 

An introduction to Persian mystic poetry and the paradox of ecstatic joy in the face of hardship. We explore what gave rise to the whirling dervishes, the purpose of poetic longing, and why these ancient voices still speak to our contemporary struggles so directly that Rumi is a best-selling poet in America. Ava will revive the oral and musical dimensions of poetry by reading poems in their original Persian, allowing students to experience the rhythm and emotional cadence of the source language. 

Week 2: Rumi’s Flame: Union and Separation

We turn to Rumi’s poems of love and loss, and the Sufi idea of divine separation as fuel for transformation. We explore how his metaphors of fire, reed flute, and drunkenness illuminate both pain and connection. 

Week 3: Hafez and the Tavern of Truth 

With sharp wit and sensual language, Hafez defied hypocrisy and opened space for radical honesty and joy. We unpack his rebellious spirituality and how it invites us to be more fully alive. 

Week 4: Khayyam and the Rubaiyat of Impermanence 

Omar Khayyam’s quatrains confront mortality, time, and fleeting beauty with both resignation and celebration. We read selected rubaiyat and discuss how uncertainty can be an invitation to presence. 

Week 5: Mulla Nasruddin, The Holy Fool 

Humor is sacred, too. We explore the tales of the trickster Mulla Nasruddin, whose foolish wisdom opens doors to humility, paradox, and insight. What happens when laughter becomes a doorway to the soul? 

Week 6: What These Poems Stir in Us 

We reflect on what these poets have awakened in each of us. Students share responses, stories, questions,  insights, perhaps even a line or two of their own writing. We consider how this ancient art can be carried into our daily lives and personal creative practices.

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

This workshop explores the Art of the Chapbook, weaving a theme through a book, the luminous universe of the smaller poem, sequence poems, poems in sections, and how to publish a chapbook. You will learn how to publish a chapbook on two different platforms that don’t charge authors to upload their book. Each session includes an inspiring writing exercise and the Writer's Toolbox, where you will receive a generous sharing of the techniques that make writing powerful and expressive. Then a workshop with a reading/feedback circle. Diane Frank works closely and personally with each writer, so you can take a significant leap in the expressiveness of your language. Her teaching style is joyful, loving, and intuitive. You’ll find the workshop generous with praise and gentle with suggestions.

Week by Week Outline 

Week 1:

We will explore the Art of the Chapbook, weaving a theme through a book, and the luminous universe of the smaller poem. In the Writer’s Toolbox, I’ll share ten practical ideas about how to write with power, beauty and wisdom. Then, we’ll have a writing session with an inspiring seed idea and an open mic for poems that were just written.

Week 2:

Sequence poems and poems in sections, exploring themes and obsessions. We will also explore a gentle way to workshop poetry. During the workshop, writers will have the opportunity to read their poems and receive praise and suggestions from other members of the workshop and from the instructor.

Week 3:

Poem Cookies and 6 by 8 poems. Writing smaller and saying more. Poems where every line delivers. In the Writer’s Toolbox, I will share techniques to help you write with style and expression, followed by a reading and feedback circle.

Week 4:

For the next two weeks, we’ll explore how to publish a chapbook on platforms that are free to the author. A guest book designer will show everyone how to do this on the platform she uses. The Writer’s Toolbox will include virtuoso editing techniques for poetry, followed by a reading and feedback circle.

Week 5:

We’ll continue exploring how to publish a chapbook on platforms that are free to the author. A guest book designer will show everyone how to do this on the platform he uses. The Writer’s Toolbox will focus on virtuoso editing techniques so that every line delivers. We’ll also discuss techniques for using sound, time and light in your writing. This is “Ask Me Anything” week, followed by reading and feedback circle.

Week 6:

Open discussion of any remaining issues in your writing.

How to promote your book after publication.

Ways to stay inspired and keep writing.

Exploring the mystery of language.

Workshop of writing by course participants.

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

This 6-week yoga series will focus on realigning your body’s optimum posture using a stable chair. Stretches will involve lengthening and strengthening of muscles that also support a healthy back. In addition to the chair, please have these yoga props available: strap, blocks and a blanket. (In lieu of the metal yoga chair, a sturdy dining/desk chair with no wheels will suffice; a belt/scarf, thick books and throw for the others.) It will also be helpful to set up the chair in front of a blank wall or tall, bar-height table.) 

Week by Week Outline 

Week 1 - Intro to categories of yoga poses and benefits of Iyengar Yoga; all categories of poses will be practiced. 

Week 2 - Feet & Legs 

Week 3 - Forward Bends 

Week 4 - Twists 

Week 5 - Chest Opening and breath meditations 

Week 6 - Restorative & meditation

**This class will be taught in-person**

Writing a poem is like crossing a lake. While free verse may feel like swimming, formal verse may feel like paddling a canoe: a sturdy vessel has already been built for the writer of a formal poem. Many contemporary writers agree that climbing into the vessel of form offers an exhilarating liberation to explore a vast lake of feelings, ideas, images, metaphors, illuminations. A form, paradoxically, frees us to take risks with our artistry.

In our six weeks together we will climb into a variety of canoes. We will read and discuss a wide selection of contemporary poems, and write in five verse forms: ghazals, pantoums, villanelles, sonnets, and sestinas. We’ll talk about the rules/limits for these ancient forms and we’ll conspire to bend/break the rules in fruitful, twenty-first century ways. All are welcome—new and seasoned poets alike.

Week 1  Ghazals: couplets with a repeating word

Week 2 Pantoums: quatrains with repeating, braided lines

Week 3 Villanelles: rhyming, repeating lines

Week 4 Sonnets: fourteen line gems both traditional and experimental

Week 5 Sestinas:  six and a half stanzas with six repeating words

Week 6 Abecedarians: twenty six lines starting with A and ending with Z

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

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This fascinating dynamic course is to define the properties of Western classical music while exploring exotic elements embraced by the Western composers in their compositions. We will take a musical trip around the world to learn about non-Western music, learning of its elements, properties, and studying its musical instruments. We will examine Japan, China, Middle East, Mexico, South America, and together we will analyse, deduct, admire and conclude how it impacts Western classical music.

Week by Week Outline

SESSION I: 

Folk music from around Europe and its reflection in classical music: From czardas, hopak to floating birches, polka to waltzes in the music of Dvořák, Brahms, Kalmán, Liszt, etc.

SESSION II: 

Instruments and music from Japan and China. Learn about the history, properties, and repertoire of Japanese pipa, yangqin, guqin, shakuhachi, Chinese sheng and erhu, etc.

SESSION III: 

Music from the Middle East and beyond. Explore Bulgarian folk songs, Croatian klapa, klezmer,  Romani music, and the instruments brought to Europe via the 711 conquests of the Iberian peninsula and its impact on classical music. 

SESSION IV. 

Exoticism in opera and classical music: The impact of the 1867 World Exposition in Paris on art that found new inspiration in newly discovered exotic countries from Japan and China to the music of Spain, etc.  

SESSION V: 

Tango, milonga, condomne, and its transcription in Argentinean and Uruguayan music along with the Spanish influence of flamenco, fandango, guitar mastery, and such!  

The class will explore the music of Mexico, South America, and Spanish music along with its impact on classical music. 

SESSION VI. 

How American music influenced Europe: from spirituals to Gershwin to jazz to step dance to Joplin, Dvořák, Copland, Ravel, etc. 

**This class is a Hybrid. This section of class will be taught In-Person**

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Gilgamesh, Iliad, Odyssey, and Æneid are the foundation stories of our culture. Gilgamesh stands as the original epic of a Hero’s Journey through youthful arrogance, wild sex, wise women, environmental destruction, and arrival at maturity. The Iliad rides an anti-war message through operatic struggles of god-like men and childish gods, absurd brutality and incredible tenderness. The Odyssey tells of absent fatherhood, single motherhood, a man taught maturity by female archetypes, and a married couple rediscovering each other in midlife. Finally, the Æneid shows how a poet might shape a people’s sense of self. And we tell these stories through images of the greatest of Western art. 

Week by Week Outline 

Week 1 – Gilgamesh: The oldest known written story known, the original and archetypal hero’s journey. An arrogant king forgets his ethics, finds a friend (or his wild side), loses his friend and takes a journey of  terrible hardship to find the meaning of life and death.  

weeks 2-3 – The Iliad: A pillar of Western education for 2700 years, this story plunges us into a world of heroes and fools, lust and betrayal, gods and childishness, incredible violence and absurd tenderness, and an anti-war message. Understanding Western art and literature requires knowing something of the Iliad.

weeks 4-5 – The Odyssey: The other pillar of Western education for 2700 years, the most powerful of stories of a woman holding a household and kingdom together, a boy yearning for his dad, a middle-aged  man buffeted by the powers of Nature embodied by female archetypes, of longing of every kind. The most beautiful allegory ever written about the journey to middle age, about how a family can endure becoming  strangers and then rediscover each other. 

week 6 – The Æneid: The story written to be greater than the greatest of stories. In packing as much  adventure and passion into one book that Homer did in two, Virgil wanted to be the Homer of the Romans, the father of the national myth. He succeeded, as our art museums show in abundance. 

**This class is a Hybrid. This section of class will be taught on Zoom**

Watch the Preview Video

Gilgamesh, Iliad, Odyssey, and Æneid are the foundation stories of our culture. Gilgamesh stands as the original epic of a Hero’s Journey through youthful arrogance, wild sex, wise women, environmental destruction, and arrival at maturity. The Iliad rides an anti-war message through operatic struggles of god-like men and childish gods, absurd brutality and incredible tenderness. The Odyssey tells of absent fatherhood, single motherhood, a man taught maturity by female archetypes, and a married couple rediscovering each other in midlife. Finally, the Æneid shows how a poet might shape a people’s sense of self. And we tell these stories through images of the greatest of Western art. 

Week by Week Outline 

Week 1 – Gilgamesh: The oldest known written story known, the original and archetypal hero’s journey. An arrogant king forgets his ethics, finds a friend (or his wild side), loses his friend and takes a journey of  terrible hardship to find the meaning of life and death.  

weeks 2-3 – The Iliad: A pillar of Western education for 2700 years, this story plunges us into a world of heroes and fools, lust and betrayal, gods and childishness, incredible violence and absurd tenderness, and an anti-war message. Understanding Western art and literature requires knowing something of the Iliad.

weeks 4-5 – The Odyssey: The other pillar of Western education for 2700 years, the most powerful of stories of a woman holding a household and kingdom together, a boy yearning for his dad, a middle-aged  man buffeted by the powers of Nature embodied by female archetypes, of longing of every kind. The most beautiful allegory ever written about the journey to middle age, about how a family can endure becoming  strangers and then rediscover each other. 

week 6 – The Æneid: The story written to be greater than the greatest of stories. In packing as much  adventure and passion into one book that Homer did in two, Virgil wanted to be the Homer of the Romans, the father of the national myth. He succeeded, as our art museums show in abundance. 

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Watch the Preview Video

Come explore fascinating cultures through the study of historical and contemporary ethnic textiles. We will examine how textiles indicate identity, wealth, status and concepts of beauty as well as embody important ritualistic qualities. The class combines illustrated lectures with the opportunity to look up-close at new examples of textiles from the instructor’s collection. Some are new destinations while others are revisited favorites.

1. Introduction & Tribal Mexico

2. Northwest Coast and Mayan Guatemala

3. Latin America –Panama and the Andes

4. Islamic Spain & North Africa and Central Asia

5. Southeast Asia – Thailand and Laos

6. Rural India and the Himalayas

**This class will be taught In-Person**

The Master of Suspense hit his stride in his American films during these years, when Hitchcock made some of his most-remembered movies. This survey course will consist of in-depth discussions of six seminal films made in this period: Saboteur, Lifeboat, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, North by  Northwest, and Psycho. 

 What were Hitchcock’s recurrent themes? Who was the ideal “Hitchcock woman?” What were his signature filmic elements? How did the director and cast deal with the special challenges of filming  Lifeboat? What really happened while filming the shower scene in Psycho?  

 Alfred Hitchcock... He tantalized, thrilled, and terrified us for decades, all the while reminding us “It’s only a movie.” 

Week by Week Outline 

1 Saboteur (1942) 

2 Lifeboat (1944) 

3 Strangers on a Train (1951) 

4 Rear Window (1954) 

5 North by Northwest (1959) 

6 Psycho (1960) 

**This class will be taught In-Person**

From the 18th century to the 20th, France was the creative center of Western art. We’ll look at the art of these exciting years, and at the artists who created it. We’ll see some familiar faces—Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse—but we’ll meet some new faces, new places, and some fascinating cultural connections. Each week, we’ll focus on five or six artists and wander down curious paths where we’ll find French inventions like the jacquard loom, the modern color palette, wigs, cotton dresses, the great cat massacre, the Crocrodrome, furniture music, the “decisive moment” and the little black dress.

Week by Week Outline

Week 1: The Royals

It all starts at Versailles. Art is produced for the aristocracy whose tastes established standards that lasted centuries.

Week 2: The Revolutionaries

Revolution resounded throughout French society, and art reflected a new ethos and took steps toward the modern world.

Week 3: The Art of Real Life Artists look more and more at the world around them, and find it a fit subject for documentation.

Week 4: The Art of Impression How to go about making an image of the world? How to paint becomes more important than what to paint.
 

Week 5. The Surreal World

It all started in France!

Week 6: Contemporaries

Learn about late 20th and 21st century French art.