Thursday Session 1   

This course is an introduction to Italian history and culture through the lens of Italian cuisine and its role in literature, historical texts, visual arts, and film. Members will examine the history of food culture and its sociocultural and socioeconomic impacts from antiquity to contemporary Italy.

From colonial times to the present, America has benefited from visionary women and men in law, politics, music, literature, journalism, medicine, science, religion, and social reform. From a list of more than a thousand people, the course presents one hundred profiles of both well-known and lesser-known heroes such as Jonas Salk, Clara Barton, Alice Hamilton, Mary Bickerdyke, Molly Ivins, Edward R. Murrow, Mary Heaton Vorse, and William Trotter.

This course will review the political history of Pennsylvania since its founding by William Penn. We will explore the state's structure of government and compare its major public policies (taxation, welfare, reproductive rights, environmental regulation, direct democracy, and criminal justice) with those of other states in our federal system. We will analyze the impact of the state's political culture, parties, interest groups, and demographic trends on public policy and on recent elections to state and federal office.

This will be a fun, exploratory course delving into the world of fine art printmaking. Techniques will include monotype using a gel plate and linocut and/or relief methods. Emphasis will be placed on experimentation and combining techniques, rather than producing multiples of the same image. A printmaking press is not needed. This course is suitable for both members new to printmaking and those who have taken printmaking courses from the instructor or elsewhere.

The survey of modern architects, which began with the world’s first steel-framed skyscraper in Chicago, concludes with a broad look at contemporary architecture. Beginning with Philip Johnson and “Postmodernism” concluding with the Chinese firm of Neri & Hu, we will examine examples from the kaleidoscope of approaches to design and the introduction of new technologies to create buildings that challenge our preconceptions and excite our senses. Striking photography and video will illustrate the adventure. Lively discussions will be strongly encouraged.

If you have been writing or always wanted to write, this course will help you with certain basics: how to craft exciting dialogue, how to describe a place or a person, how to engage in a summary of action that you do not need to detail, how to use place and setting, and how to conceive of a plot. The basic goal will be to write a short story. Many stories take years to write, so this might be a first and second draft, or if you are lucky, it might be very advanced. The same skills are useful in longer works.

Technological advances, political volatility, and geopolitical unrest have made navigating the stock market and our own personal portfolios both incredibly challenging and also extremely rewarding. We will examine how individual investors can survive and even thrive in volatile environments. We will also examine the global economy, United States politics and its impact on stocks, and even the future of technology as we try to make sense of the broader market and our own finances.

This course describes the structure and function of the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the Commonwealth, and other inter-governmental organizations. How do these organizations work toward peace and prosperity in the world? How do countries use them to achieve their policy goals? What are the challenges of cooperating on an international scale?

Part 1 of this course takes members on a virtual and chronological tour of historic places in Western Pennsylvania, from pre-history to the dawn of the Industrial Age. Participants will virtually visit several locations, from Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village in Washington County to Old Economy Village in Beaver County. The course is designed to encourage members to explore these places on their own and with their families.