Fall 2022 - Registration is Open!   

We will look at early meetings between the Native Americans and the Europeans; the glory hunting Spanish, the grand exploring French, the practical Dutch, and the varied English colonies of Puritan and Cavalier. We will compare relationships and marvel over the daring development of those earliest colonies while acknowledging the demise of the Indian cultures that this migration caused. Throughout the course there will be plenty of myths; sacred, bawdy, and intriguing to accompany the various cultures.

The debate over our "Constitutional rights" is at the forefront of political and journalistic attention. Constitutional rights are protections and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Even though rights are expressly stated, or enumerated, proper interpretation and scope is determined by the Supreme Court. Not all rights historically protected by the Constitution are explicitly stated, but are implied or unenumerated, like the right to privacy. The Bill of Rights and Constitution discuss individuals' rights by saying what the government cannot do. The Supreme Court has recognized fundamental rights that are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution and amendments. This class will present enumerated and unenumerated rights over our history, including those established through judicial precedent. We will consider the benefits and risks of the singular authority of the US Supreme Court to interpret our Rights in American Society.

This course will take us from the NW coast of Norway to the SE corner of Newfoundland, Canada; with Scotland and Ireland poking out of the 3000 mile-wide Atlantic Ocean. What unites these disparate land masses is found in rocks and fossils on both sides of the ocean. The ocean that now fills the basin began rifting and separating the North American, European, South American, and African plates about 200 million years ago. That separation, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, is ongoing, creating more seafloor all the time. But over 200 million years before this separation began, the proto-continents, precursors of North America and Europe, were colliding into a long skinny micro-continent between them. Africa was in this mix as well. SE Newfoundland today happily houses 565-million-year-old fossils that originated in western Africa. It's a great story, the landscape is stunning, and I have had the great pleasure of having visited Norway, Scotland, Ireland, and Newfoundland.

Every city has a particular feel about it, defined by its history, architecture, demographics, geography, climate, and the people and cultures that have shaped the city from its founding to its current status. From historical to contemporary structures, this course explores the iconic structures that identify various American cities and how they came to be. Discussion of architectural styles and the socio-political context in which these buildings were created lie beneath the developmental time frames in the study of each city included. Cities covered include Richmond, Atlanta, and New Orleans.

In this introduction to Google Docs, we'll show you how document creation and sharing works "in the cloud." If you have worked with other office productivity software, you'll be surprised how many features and functions are available in the free Google Apps. We'll touch on how Google Docs can fit into and simplify your workflow across devices and operating systems. This class is for desktop/laptop computer users and will include information for mobile devices. The Chrome web browser is recommended on the devices. This online class will use recorded and live demonstrations as well as written material.

Whether it is aspirin, insulin, or Covid vaccines, Americans take many medications and vaccines without appreciating the science and regulatory processes that made them possible. Join me for an overview of the drug and vaccine development process and the role of the FDA. Whether it is diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines that are being developed, the process involves science, regulations, and business decisions. We will look at the usual path of drug development and take a close look at the development and approval process for Covid 19 tests and vaccines. We will discuss how the public's opinion of science, pharmaceutical companies, and safety is influenced by traditional news outlets and social media.

It's fall, and while the heady, warm days of summer may be over, it's not time to ignore your garden. Fall is a great time to help your garden get ready to rest and prepare for the next growing season. We'll discuss how to "put your garden to bed" and protect it from pests and disease organisms that would love to nestle in and stay for the winter. We'll explore ways to promote the health of overwintering perennials and shrubs and discuss which kinds of plants are best planted in the fall. The cool season of fall is also a great time to review what grew well. Do you have the amount of sun and shade your plants need? Is it time to try other plants? Now is a great time to order seed and bulb catalogs that will entice you with their bright pictures and helpful descriptions. What will you choose to grow next year? How about some plants that are native to our area and can thrive better than plants imported from other parts of the country? Northwest natives love our climate.

Da-Dum, Da Dum... A large part of what turned a little 1974 summer thriller named Jaws into an enduring classic was the music of John Williams. His score is more than a couple of notes everyone knows. It's a sea symphony, chock-full of themes and motifs that spurred the resurgence of orchestral scores back into movies. Join us to discover how music elevates a film's atmosphere, supports the narrative, emotionally connects us with characters, and gives us another reason to see a good picture again and again. Over three sessions, we will watch Jaws in its entirety, explore the backstory of its production and how Williams uses music to shock, thrill and add dimension to film moments. While seeing Jaws beforehand and some theoretical knowledge of music will be helpful, only the love of music and movies is necessary to gain from this journey.

Let's travel to our nation's capital. First, we will explore the National Gallery of Art, with its collection of Western paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts. This Gallery holds the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the western hemisphere, Degas's beeswax sculpture of the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, and examples from every major art period. Next, we visit the Phillips Collection. Opened in 1921 as a memorial to Duncan Phillips's father and brother, it showcases Phillips's collection of American and European modernists including Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, the Rothko Room, and half of Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series. Finally, to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, which houses the world's largest collection of Whistler's work. The museum features paintings from the Aesthetic movement of the late nineteenth century, and the arts of China, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, Japan, Korea, and the Islamic world ranging from the Neolithic period to the present.

Today Venice is a city of and for tourists. Sometimes called Disneyland for Adults, over ten million tourists visit Venice annually. It is a city like no other and so is its history. At the height of its power, Venice was the second largest city in Western Europe with a maritime empire that controlled much of the trade between Europe and Asia. We will look at the rich history of the Republic of Venice beginning with its humble start as a refuge from the invasion of Attila the Hun to its rise as a major city-state controlling trade and commerce of the Mediterranean. We will explore its role in the Crusades and its long war with the Turks for supremacy in the region. We will examine Venice’s role in the Renaissance and its importance in creating the institutions of modern finance such as the banking and insurance industries. The series will end with a look at modern Venice from the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1790s to the invasion of the tourists in the 20th Century.

We are going to dive into the free Google Drive services found in your Google account, which will simplify your life and make you more productive. We'll show you how cloud-based apps work within the Google Universe. We'll cover the advantages of using Google's office productivity apps - and the pitfalls. Touching on security and privacy, we’ll show how Google's products can work with - and sometimes better - than the business software you might be familiar with. This class is for desktop/laptop computer users and will include information for mobile devices. The Chrome web browser is recommended on the devices. This online class will use recorded and live demonstrations as well as written material.

Why do some songs quickly become favorites, or get stuck in your head even though you don’t particularly like them? What is happening physiologically and psychologically in our brains that causes us to get hooked on a piece of music? These questions will be explored in "Hooks, Riffs, and Earworms – How Your Favorite Music Grabs You." We will listen to a wide variety of music, classical to jazz to rock and pop, from 1400 B.C. to the present, find out what makes some tunes more memorable than others, how your brain reacts to music, and techniques composers use to "hook" you on their music.

Ever wonder why you feel queasy after having that leftover potato salad that has been sitting on the counter for 12 hours? Food Science is where microbiology, nutrition, and chemistry meet to give us insight into why food is so fascinating. In this course, we will explore the science behind cooking, proper food safety techniques, and how ratios of fat, carbohydrate, and protein make a difference in each recipe. Bring your aprons and chef hats because we are cooking up science this term!

This course provides a brief survey of the development of jazz music in the United States. A number of jazz styles will be listened to and studied along with important instrumentalists, singers, bands, and composers. Important historical and social events which parallel the development of jazz music will also be discussed. Live and recorded demonstrations of jazz style periods and jazz techniques will be presented. This class will focus on the issue of racism in jazz music with specific attention paid to the Swing Era in the 1930s, the emergence of "Hard Bop" in the 1950s, and the intersection of the Civil Rights Movement and the "New Thing" (Free Jazz) in the 1960s.

Nowadays, vicissitudes abound - in our individual and collective lives. In this lecture and discussion course we will focus on ways in which people respond to vicissitudes: with courage and action; with grief, imagination, revenge, and loving kindness extended to strangers. We will watch films each week, and a Discussion Guide will be circulated which will include some questions and a song, verse, or editorial - all meant to point the way towards a stimulating discussion.

This 2-session class features the poetry of Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge as performed by Norwegian artists Reidun Horvei (voice) and Inger-Kristine Riber (piano). The poems in this song cycle follow the seasons of the year at the same time that they mark developments in Hauge's poetry and in his personal life. In the first session, instructor Katherine Hanson will introduce the poet, the poems in the song cycle, in English translation and Norwegian, and the artists from Norway. Horvei and Riber will give a preview of the songs and music that will be performed in concert at the second session. There will be ample opportunity for class participants to meet the artists, ask questions, and engage in discussion.

The works of Shakespeare inspired untold numbers of composers to compose operas based on the iconic writer's plays. In many cases, multiple composers wrote operas based on the same Shakespeare play. Whether tragic or comic, operas such as Verdi's Falstaff and Gounod's Romeo and Juliet reflect the brilliance of Bard's universal portrayals of the human condition. Former Metropolitan Opera violinist and opera expert Erica Miner explores these operatic works and their corresponding plays in vivid detail, illustrating her presentation with fascinating videos.

In this course, we will undertake a reading of the bard’s tragic account of a case of maniacal jealousy. We will consider the problem of Othello as a tragic hero, the problem of Iago's motivation, and yes, the problem of race posed by the play. Students are asked to read through Act 2 for the first class meeting. Any edition of the play will do, though it is recommended to find one with annotations, and line numbers (the instructor prefers Signet Classic paperbacks, widely available).

In the years after WWII, many scholars and historians focused on finding looted objects and/or the return and restitution of these works of art; each action a well-meaning and noble goal. Very few studied the art that was created and left behind either as a testimony to the crimes, an expression of grief, or the artist's personal remembrance of a life that was no longer. We will examine the art of those whose artistic creations were caught in the turmoil of war. We are left with a mere trace of their existence - a drawing, a manuscript, a musical score. Items that were secreted out of the war zone, others that were hidden in the concentration camps or held by family and friends who could not at first, bear to reveal what they had received because of the devastating memories. This course is in memory of those victims, the young and the old who were unable to share their art... It remains our challenge and responsibility to give life and meaning to their existence.

There is no excuse to say we did not know... we cannot turn a blind eye... we cannot fall back on a lack of knowing, as was done in WWII. The world is watching the destruction of the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian Cultural Heritage continues on a daily basis. Join us in learning about the Seven UNESCO World Heritage sites that exist in the Ukraine, their importance, and what is jeopardized by this Russian invasion. We will look at what has been destroyed, what is being documented and what is being done by the art world to assist in preserving the Ukrainian Culture at this moment.

Microsoft launched Windows 11 nearly a year ago with a slimmed-down, less complicated user interface and some new capabilities. How has it fared? Is Windows 11 a compelling upgrade? Can I upgrade or do I need a new computer? How different is it? Let's explore these and your questions around Windows 11 setup and usage.

The great sweep of American history begins with a step, the step of the nomads who walked onto the continent. We will briefly observe the earliest humans encountering the glacial environment of the North American continent before moving ahead thousands of years to the more differentiated cultures of the Cliff Dwellers and the Mound Builders. From there we will explore five distinct Native American cultures of the 1500's, a successful response to five distinct environments, to better appreciate the great diversity of lifestyles that had evolved. Indian cultures ranged from large, well established farming communities to fluid bands of big game hunters, from participants in early democracy to slaveholding nobility. Throughout the course there will be plenty of myths; sacred, bawdy, and intriguing to accompany the various cultures. Our guides will be Raven, Coyote, Corn Maiden, and others.

We will learn about the development of astronomical telescopes from Galileo's first instrument through the launch and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope. We will explore the design, technology, and scientific achievements of these instruments, and their influence on our understanding of the universe, with emphasis on the Hubble Space Telescope and the Webb Space Telescope. Some introductory concepts in optics and light will be explained in order to fully appreciate how telescopes work and their capabilities. No background in science or mathematics is assumed.

Enhance your ability to identify and understand the common birds of our region. We will explore anatomy, reproduction, foods & foraging and the habitats in which to find the birds. Our three sessions will cover Backyard Birds, Owls & Raptors, and Water Birds. This course is geared toward beginning to intermediate-level birders.

This course will address three Platonic dialogues each of which is in some way relevant to the trial of Socrates—the Euthyphro, the Apology, and the Crito. In large part, class meetings will consist of class discussion that takes up and tries to answer questions that each of these dialogues raises. In this way, the class will engage in a dialogue with Plato. The course will have four meetings. The first meeting will begin with a discussion of why Plato wrote dialogues and with an introduction to Socrates as Plato portrays him. The second meeting will be devoted to the Euthyphro and the nature of piety. The third meeting will focus on the Apology while the last meeting will take up the Crito. Participants should read the appropriate dialogue prior to each class meeting.

We are not your average book club. Participants make their own reading choices and come prepared to share a brief review and appraisal. Any author and genre is fine, and we will open reviews up to podcasts, websites, theater, etc. It’s all about the art of storytelling and information sharing. Learn from each other through great informal discussion.

The Old Testament Book of Exodus story of the liberation of a people is also the story of the unprecedented invention of a radically new conception of religion - one that became the basis for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This class will consider the monotheism of loyalty that has defined much of Western religion, deriving out of the stories of Exodus.

The three sessions (following the IPCC format), each with one hour lecture, a short break, and one hour class discussion. First session - Earth System: energy balance, global climate change (past, present, future prediction). Second session - Climate change impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation options (global to local). Third session - Climate change mitigation possibilities (global, national, regional, personal).

In this course, we will undertake a reading of Homer's great epic of the hero's return from the Trojan War. Special attention will be paid to the deep mythological undercurrents of the narrative, and to the ways and customs of the bronze-age culture imagined by the poet. We will be using the translation by Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics) for our text. Students are asked to read through Book 6 for the first class meeting.

The Sufi master Hafiz (14th C) was one of the most beloved poets of medieval Persia. Like Rumi before him, Hafiz wrote poems of great eloquence and insight on topics such as love, loss, the divine, beauty, longing, art, and the mystical. His work influenced authors such as Goethe, Emerson, Nietzsche, Lorca, and the composer Brahms. His inspired verse is relevant even today. The text for this class is The Gift: Poems by Hafiz translated by Daniel Ladinsky.