History, Classics, & Philosophy   

From 1945 through 1991, almost every aspect of society was in some way impacted by the propaganda used by both the United States and the Soviet Union as they faced off in a conflict that came to be known as the Cold War. We will utliize the lyrics of a popular Billy Joel song to enhance a comprehensive examination of the most significant events of this conflict. The course will address the depth and impact of the Cold War on both the United States and Soviet Union by presenting the history of this conflict in chronological order.

Beneath the simple panels of Charles Schulz's Peanuts lies a profound meditation on failure, hope, loneliness, and connection. Rather than traditional heroic figures, Schulz portrays ordinary individuals who wrestle with courage, loyalty, disappointment, and hope. This course uses the comic strip as a lens to explore two of humanity's most enduring themes: heroism and friendship. We will ask: What does it mean to be brave when you always lose? How do we sustain friendships marked by misunderstanding? And why does a beagle dreaming atop a doghouse move us so deeply?

This course examines the reinvention of central Europe that occurs between 1848 and 1880 when splintered collections of small city states, bishoprics, and kingdoms unified into the two modern states of Germany and Italy. Nationalists instigated a series of wars, insurrections, and land grabs, often done with extraordinary flair, boldness, and ruthless cunning. At times referred to as “unification from the top down,” these processes of unification will inspire many other Europeans and, indeed, shake the foundations of established monarchies such as in Austria-Hungary, Russia, France, and Great Britain.

History generally remembers Henry Clay Frick as Andrew Carnegie's anti-union enforcer and as a prodigious art collector. The author of an upcoming biography of Frick, to be published by W.W. Norton, reveals a deeper, more layered, and previously undiscovered version of the man. He was far more influential in business and politics than generally acknowledged, and far more venal and corrupt than even his legion of detractors have claimed.

What would the millennia-long history of Britain be like if condensed into a five-week course? Exactly like this: it begins with the peopling of the island after the Ice Age and concludes post-Brexit. Stories of risings and fallings, invasions, immigration, revolutions (Glorious and otherwise), and wars (Great and otherwise) move us through the millennia to an understanding of the bigger picture.

This American history lecture course will focus on the biographies of key founding fathers: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. The time periods of colonial, revolutionary, and early U.S. history will also be explored in the context of their lives.

This course will begin with a synopsis of German expansion from 1933 through 1939, and will then focus on the German invasion of Poland and the resulting outbreak of war in September of 1939. This will be followed by discussions of the occupation of Denmark and Norway, the period of the so-called "phony war," and Germany's stunning victory in the West in 1940, which seemed to guarantee Germany's continental hegemony. The course will conclude with analyses of the German plan to invade Great Britain and of the ensuing aerial Battle of Britain, whose outcome thwarted the German invasion plan.