Tuesday Session 2   

Around the world, questions and doubts abound regarding the durability of democratic governments in the 21st century. The United States retains its status as a military superpower but has fallen to number 26 on the democracy index and is now rated as “flawed.” In existing democracies, citizens charge elected officials with elitism and responsibility for dismantling the social contract. Nationalist groups have angrily challenged economic policies, asserting that the system is contrived to only benefit those at the top. Will democracy hold? And can we uncover those democratic principles which navigated the turmoil of the past, in time for today's challenges?

NOTE: Democracy and Democratic Principles: Part I is recommended, but not a prerequisite for this course.

 

Led by an experienced helicopter pilot, this course will review the foundations of aerodynamics and helicopter air ambulance operations. Lessons will include live, on-the-job presentations of mechanics as well as a dynamic mix of personal experiences and stories from the instructor. Members will gain a full understanding of the procedures, operations, and tactical decision making that regulate the U.S. airspace and medical evacuation industry.

Technology's pace continues to accelerate, sometimes leaving us in the dust. The purpose of this course is to put members in a position of general understanding of five important aspects of advanced technology: the Internet and the cloud; cell phones and social media; self-driving cars and trucks; blockchain and cryptocurrency; and ChatGPT. This is an introductory course on five broad and complex subjects. No prior technical knowledge is required; however, participants should come with a curious, open mind. Together we will jump on the raging tech train and see what we can learn.

What did exile mean for the Prophet Isaiah and his people? What was home for them? How did Isaiah say hope could be maintained in trying and dangerous times? Isaiah wrote about these things to rebellious people who were forgiven and loved by the God they had rejected. The Book of Isaiah contains words of challenge that cause people to sit up and take notice. It contains beautiful words of comfort and hope in times of need. In this course, we will learn about Isaiah and his world, his comments and ideas, and the relevant ideas from the prophet for today.

These transcendent memoirs of "Otherness," grounded in music and poetry, in constant motion between history and biography, defiance and empathy, pain and joy, will take participants across three continents and three writers: Joy Harjo, Ahed Tamimi, and Shailja Patel. These are sagas about the survival of spirituality and creativity in the face of racism, violence, humiliation, and dispossession. They convey with clarity the strength, perseverance, love, laughter, and irony that are necessary to keep living and fighting against enormous odds. Works of unwavering moral conscience, battle cries for justice, these passionate, and brilliant memoirs shine a floodlight on people and places the world too often discounts. They will rattle our souls.

At its heart, religion intends to provide meaning to life and a way forward through sorrow or trouble. However, within most world religions lies the concept of holy war or killing done at the behest of a shared understanding that such belief is under attack by other belief systems or cultural practices. This survey course intends to understand the essence of holy war through a look at various world religions and historical moments when they took up arms in defense of their faith, justified or not, to establish the complex calculus behind armed violence in the name of religion.

This course will consider films that profit from being viewed within an historical framework. Two of the works will relate to World War I and World War II.  Another will be an example of the genre of “biopic” that purports to portray the life of a famous individual. The last two films will portray the zeitgeists of decades. One will be an American film made in the 1920s (the era of the flapper and Art Deco), and the other will involve a retrospective look at the 1960s. Feature films will be supplemented by excerpts from other relevant works (both documentary and fiction).

Where and what is “nature,” and what happens when it is represented in literature? This course examines the ways in which writers in English have engaged with the natural environment. We will read a range of authors from the advent of industrialization in the late eighteenth century up to the present age of climate change and consider how they have celebrated the “natural world” and looked critically at human effects on ecosystems. Our texts will include poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, from a range of authors including Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, and Barbara Kingsolver. Throughout, we will be attentive both to the literary qualities of writings about the environment and to their historical and political contexts.

This course examines Latin American societies through a cultural analysis of gender roles, sexual identities, age, and family relationships. In addition, from a conventional and academic perspective, members will explore the novellas in their social and historical contexts. The specific themes explored will be highlighted by two short novels.

We’re familiar with the apostrophe as a punctuation mark, but did you know that the term also refers to a figure of speech in which someone addresses a person or thing other than the immediate audience? The apostrophe, a remarkably versatile rhetorical tool, is often a feature of lyric verse. In this course we’ll explore how a sampling of poets from the long span of the Anglophone tradition—focusing on the Renaissance masters and the Modernists—employed it in their short but very powerful works. As our poetic personae speak to an assassinated Abraham Lincoln or a too-soon-departed seven-year-old son; to virtue, love, or even death itself; to fountains, the sun, or (most famously) a Grecian urn, they’ll captivate, amuse, and move us.

This class will focus on musical compositions by great composers exploring the themes of love, drugs, and war. Works by Berlioz, Mahler, Strauss, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Shostakovich, Penderecki, and Gorecki will be covered.

This course highlights earth system science and hazards. Lectures cover the components of the earth system, the atmosphere and weather phenomena, climate system science, the properties of the oceans, and geologic properties and structures.