Online Courses   

We will read a selection from the 100th anniversary collection of The New Yorker short fiction, discussing two or three stories each week. We will read a few familiar stories, but most will be less familiar, promoting freer discussion. Stories discussed will be different from the Fall 2025 class on this anthology.

This course will examine one of the most transformative and controversial presidents in U.S. history. Andrew Jackson was a politician and leader who became a political and social icon for a generation of Americans in the first half of the 19th century. We will explore Jackson's early life and military career along with the political rise of the "near west" as a distinct region and a force in American society. Jackson's presidential tenure represented a clear demarcation away from the patrician politics of the founding fathers’ era towards a democracy that was more inclusive, more populist, and more volatile.

This course will provide participants the knowledge necessary to obtain an enhanced experience from their usual wine drinking. We will review the key elements of terroir such as climate, geography and soil, discuss their influence on the wine and look at several wine regions. We will continue with descriptions of the visual, olfactive, tasting and aftertaste phases covering the art and some elemental science for each of the phases. Finally, we will practice what we learned with two virtual wine tastings. The instructor will identify four affordable wines available at the store in advance.

Pundits claim our current ideological divisions are unprecedented. But cycles of cooperation and discord are part of U.S. history. Enlightenment-era ideas framed efforts to write the Constitution. U.S. founders' friendships and fights still affect us. When these antagonisms created two political parties, they led to the "dirtiest" election of 1800. The failure to resolve the contradictions between the rights of states, individuals, and federal authority created a constant source of turmoil. This course will encourage participants to critically deepen historical understanding, confront our past, and comprehend the present.

The heart is the most hardworking organ in your body. It starts beating a few days after conception and continues, without any breaks, for the entirety of one's life. Every heart beat is a complex orchestration of hundreds of different processes taking place simultaneously and in a precise manner. In this course, you will learn about what goes on in a single heart beat, how it is measured by doctors, and how the heart adapts to different stages of one's life.

This course helps participants design meaningful second act careers—whether in consulting, entrepreneurship, or community work—by translating their expertise into purposeful action. Many adults approach midlife or retirement with the desire to stay engaged and work/volunteer with causes that reflect their values. However, the transition to an “encore career” can feel uncertain without a clear plan. This course helps members reflect on their experiences, identify passions and transferable skills, and create a personalized blueprint for moving confidently from intention to impact.

The Erie Canal made the America we live in. By connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, it created the greatest inland waterway in the world, and defined how the newly created nation would master the continent. We will start with the single quirk of geography that brought the Erie Canal from idea to reality. We will follow the halting start, the failures and the lessons, the triumphs and the tragedies, and the Canal's role in defining America's future. We will see America at the pinacle of ingenuity, the depth of avarice, and the permanence of vision: 200 years later, there is still an Erie Canal!

Eighty decades after World War II, Germany continues to wrestle with the lasting impact of its Nazi past, shaping both national identity and personal histories. This course examines how the nation has confronted its Holocaust legacy—through collective guilt, powerful memorials, and the complex relationships it has forged in the aftermath. Each session offers a deep dive into the country’s efforts to acknowledge, atone, and remember. This thought-provoking course provides a crucial look at how history is reckoned with—and why it must never be forgotten.

While total victory eluded the Germans in 1941, and while a limited victory had likewise not been achieved in 1942, even after Stalingrad, Hitler and Germany's military leadership were confident that a major defeat of the Red Army in 1943 would leave Germany in control of an invulnerable empire in the East. This course will trace the rationale for the 1943 offensive and military preparations for what eventuated in the Battle of the Kursk Salient, the largest battle in history. The outcome and significance of the battle will be analyzed, followed by a discussion of the Red Army's ensuing offensives through the end of the war.

This course surveys many distinguished musical conductors. Participants will learn about the historical backgrounds, philosophies, rehearsal techniques, conducting styles, and musical impacts of legendary figures such as Toscanini, Bernstein, von Karajan, Davis, Dudamel, and more. Through video analysis, listening activities, and class discussions, members will examine how each conductor shaped their orchestras, interpreted major works, and influenced the course of classical music.

Jonathan Swift's dystopian fantasy is not a children's tale about big people and little people, but rather an excoriating indictment of war, imperialism, political corruption, and consumerism. The grandiose Lilliputians find their counterparts today in Washington and Harrisburg. The obsessive-compulsive scientists of Laputa make us think of today's infatuation with AI. We will learn that Swift was no woman-hating misanthrope, but rather a prophet for our times.

Recommended book: "The Essential Writings of Jonathan Swift," edited by Claude Rawson and Ian Higgins. New York: Norton, 2009. ISBN 9780393930658

Beyond simply serving as a spiritual or moral guide for believers, the Bible offers a panoply of concepts that smack up against the modern world. These ideas include: the problem of evil; doctrine of original sin; who or what was Jesus; what will the end times look like; and, theodicy, or the justice of God. This course intends to dissect each of these concepts by providing an overview of interpretations using historical, linguistic, and, when possible, religious contexts on the way to offering how each might be understood today.

The course provides a captivating exploration of the lives and works of literary giants including Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and Oscar Wilde. We will examine their friendships, loves, and rivalries, gaining insights into the complex characters and evocative settings they created. We will explore their most famous works, contextualizing them within their times and cultures. This promises to be an exciting journey into the lives of remarkable individuals in literary history.

Beginning at the turn of the century and ending only with communism’s collapse, the U.S. government and major elements in the wider society undertook an unrelenting effort to suppress and criminalize domestic communism. This course tracks those efforts, including the state laws of the 1920s that imprisoned the fledgling communist leadership; the efforts against communists as they fought for unions, racial equality, and the unemployed; the trials and imprisonment of communist leaders; and the extra-legal efforts in the 1960s. Using video footage, documents, and music, this course will illuminate this highly consequential historic period.

Racism has always impacted all aspects of life for Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, White, and other racialized groups in America and today is manifested in all U.S. institutions and systems. This course will focus on the newest edition of one of the best books ever written on this topic: Feagin and Ducey, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations, 5th ed., 2025. We will also learn from guest speakers, the instructor's writings, and other books and materials written in the last two years by racism experts.

Please Note: This course is hybrid, offering attendance both in the Homewood Community Engagement Center and online.

This course explores anthropological approaches to understanding cultural and social change, augmented by a number of ethnographic case studies from Navajo and Polynesian communities. Readings will include portions of a book manuscript and a number of articles, all of which will be made available by the instructor. The course will review basic principles of cultural evolutionism and cultural ecology, but members with some basic understanding of cultural anthropology are likely to get the most out of this course.

Lena Horne, Marilyn Monroe, Barbra Streisand, and Hugh Jackman are some of the stars we will watch and discuss as we travel through the history of movie musicals. Our lectures will include the great musical Broadway adaptations of the 1950s, the lavish Roadshow musicals of the 1960s and 1970s, and conclude with the movie musicals of today.

This active, hands-on course will cover Indian cooking basics, introduction to Indian breads, South Indian dishes, North Indian dishes, and Indian festival dishes. Upon successful completion of the course, members will become familiar with ingredients used in Indian cooking, comfortably shop at Indian grocery stores, prepare dishes taught in class on their own, and understand differences in Indian regional cooking and dishes.

From Madeline Miller's Circe to Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Gods of Jade and Shadow, re-imaginings and re-tellings of world mythology have taken root within the context of modern readership. The variation of genres, authors, and audiences indicates the resonance that mythology from across time and cultures still holds. But why do we come back to these old tales? And what were they, once upon a time? In this course, we will study ancient myths and modern fiction side by side to determine how myth continues to have a hold on us, and ask how much of myth we, in turn, hold onto and perpetuate.

Following World War II, the victorious Allied powers convened international tribunals to conduct criminal trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo. This course will examine these proceedings, with a focus on some of the unusual legal issues raised by the unprecedented trials. Did the principal charge made against most of the defendants of "waging aggressive war" even constitute a crime under international law prior to these trials? We will also discuss some war crimes trials in Germany and Israel that occurred after the completion of the tribunals' trials.

Note: This course will be offered twice, once in-person and once online. It is the same course.