Courses: Summer   

Osher Online Course - produced by the Osher National Resource Center

**To get to the course you will not be sent the Zoom link, but log into a portal (instructions will be provided to those enrolled)
**This course will be presented via Zoom and will not be recorded. Space is limited.**
**If you have a course package that you would like to use, please contact olli@sfsu.edu**

Introduction video: https://vimeo.com/1059746234

"Chief Justice William Rehnquist led the U.S. Supreme Court for nearly 19 years (1986–2005), overseeing cases on privacy, civil rights, the environment, the First Amendment, and states' rights. Under his leadership, the Court actively struck down federal statutes and precedent, often with conservative outcomes. However, as its composition shifted, some conservative rulings diminished.

This course examines the legacy of the Rehnquist Court, as well as his 15 years as an associate justice under Chief Justice Warren Burger. We will explore landmark cases, including Woodson v. North Carolina (1976), Craig v. Boren (1978), Miller v. Johnson (1995), Bush v. Gore (2000), Atkins v. Virginia (2001), and Lawrence v. Texas (2002)."

Instructor: Lauren Andersen is the director of the Utah Judicial Institute. Andersen practiced appellate law in the state of California and presented arguments to the California Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. During this time, Andersen closely studied the Roberts Court. She has lectured about the Supreme Court and the death penalty. Her opinions were quoted by The New York Times and the ABA Journal. She was previously the director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Utah.

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Click to watch the course preview video.

The course is an introduction to the ancient Chinese practice of moving meditation designed to improve all aspects of personal health. Regular practice of Tai Chi has been shown to improve balance, reduce the likelihood of falls, improve immune function, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure, among many other benefits. Anyone who is able to walk is able to practice Tai Chi. Clothing that allows for comfortable movement and reasonably flat shoes are recommended. 

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Watch the preview video here.

Metamorphosis can be painful, exhilarating, confusing, or some combination thereof. In these six  masterpieces of the short story genre, we will explore how writers from diverse backgrounds portray the  complexity of personal transformation. Starting with James Joyce’s stunning 1914 story “The Dead” and  ending with Edwidge Danticat’s devastating 1995 short story “The Children of the Sea,” this course traces  how the short story form is particularly suited to depictions of transformation. Students will learn about  the historical, social, and cultural context of each story, practice literary close reading skills, and develop  an understanding of the conventions of the short story genre. 

Stories will be provided to students as pdfs.

Osher Online Course - produced by the Osher National Resource Center

**To get to the course you will not be sent the Zoom link, but log into a portal (instructions will be provided to those enrolled)
**This course will be presented via Zoom and will not be recorded. Space is limited.**
**If you have a course package that you would like to use, please contact olli@sfsu.edu**

Introduction video: https://vimeo.com/1032064833

Economics plays a central role in shaping every aspect of society. This course examines a series of prominent policy issues with economics at their core. We will explore the origins of these issues, the underlying data and evidence, and the policy tools available to address them. Each lecture will be standalone, delivered by a subject matter expert with a Ph.D. in economics. Potential topics include climate change, healthcare economics, economic inequality, and more, with final selections based on the most relevant and timely issues at the start of the course.

Instructor: Geof Woglom, PhD is professor emeritus of economics at Amherst College, where he taught for over 40 years. He has held visiting positions at Cambridge, Harvard, and the London School of Economics. Woglom was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town and at Nanjing University. Over his career, he has served as an economic consultant for the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Poet Stanley Kunitz wrote: “Poems would be easy if our heads weren’t so full of the day’s clatter. The task is to get through to the other side, where we can hear the deep rhythms that connect us with the stars and the tides.”

Does the day’s clatter seem especially loud right now? Join us this summer for six weeks of reading and writing poems that help us get through to another side. Together we’ll listen for deep, connecting rhythms and look at poems from a variety of times and places that comfort and provoke, nourish our souls and advocate for change.

Throughout history, while regimes have shredded safety nets and oppressed people, poets have woven beautiful, lasting webs of words and inspired/uplifted people. In this class, we’ll read and write both spiritual and political poetry that engages eloquently with our inner and outer worlds: prayers, manifestos, meditations, calls to action…sometimes all rolled into one!

Osher Online Course - produced by the Osher National Resource Center

**To get to the course you will not be sent the Zoom link, but log into a portal (instructions will be provided to those enrolled)
**This course will be presented via Zoom and will not be recorded. Space is limited.**
**If you have a course package that you would like to use, please contact olli@sfsu.edu**

Introduction: https://vimeo.com/1033522265

Paul Newman, the embodiment of charisma, captivated movie audiences with his iconic baby blue eyes, striking features, and powerful screen presence. Known for his multiple Academy Award-nominated performances in films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Hustler (1961), and Absence of Malice (1981), Newman ultimately won an Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), the sequel to The Hustler. Alongside his acting career, he pursued a parallel path as a race car driver and dedicated significant time to entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors. This course will trace the timeline of Newman’s remarkable career, from his legendary collaborations with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) to his final roles in Road to Perdition (2002), Empire Falls (2005), and Cars (2006), where he voiced the retired race car Doc Hudson.

**This class will be taught on Zoom. Note that class will skip July 22 and end on August 19.**

Watch the preview video here.

Despite its critics and its flaws, psychoanalysis continues to be a cultural force in the Euro American world. Far from being only relevant for the rich and famous, psychoanalysis permeates  our everyday thinking and discourse in multiple ways. But today’s psychoanalysis, both in  theory and in practice, is very different from Freud’s original perspectives. Although both  women and men have contributed to the transformation of psychoanalytic thought, in this mini course we will focus on the lives, careers, and contributions of women analysts who influenced  psychoanalysis. We will consider how these women helped broaden psychoanalytic theory  beyond looking at family history to focus on relational, social, and cultural influences on psychological life. Even though some of these women were considered rebels at the time and  were vilified by their more traditional (mostly male) colleagues, all of them refined and/or  challenged the original Freudian concepts. Their impact is present in contemporary theories and  practices of therapy and in common understandings of human psychology.  

THIS CLASS IS FULL. Please click the "Add to Waitlist" button below.

The "Add to Waitlist" button will only appear if you are signed in, have a valid membership, and enrollment is open. Note that your membership must be valid throughout the length of the course.

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Click to watch the course preview video.

What happened in Early Modern Europe didn’t stay in Early Modern Europe. 

This period, from the invention of the printing press to the French Revolution created much of our modern world. This includes the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, global exploration, the birth of capitalism, and the very idea of change that define much of how we see ourselves.  First, we will ground our survey in the ideas of “early modern” and “Europe” and get the lay of the land in the 15C. Over the following four weeks, we will take thematic looks at the people, their ideas and beliefs, the development of capitalism across a newly integrated globe, and questions of politics and power. We will conclude with the so-called “age of reason” and the beginnings of industrialization.

Osher Online Course - produced by the Osher National Resource Center

**To get to the course you will not be sent the Zoom link, but log into a portal (instructions will be provided to those enrolled)
**This course will be presented via Zoom and will not be recorded. Space is limited.**
**If you have a course package that you would like to use, please contact olli@sfsu.edu**

Introduction video: https://vimeo.com/1032421484

Historians, beer enthusiasts, and curious minds alike will enjoy this exploration of the history of brewing. We will begin in the distant past with the invention of beer around 4000 BCE. Then we will journey through time to the modern rise of craft brewing. Along the way, we will dive into fascinating topics including medieval brewing, beer in Shakespeare’s era, colonial brewing, Prohibition, indigenous brewing traditions worldwide, and the evolution of beer commercials. This course meets during happy hour, so feel free—nay, encouraged—to raise a glass and toast to history while we learn.

Instructor: Dr. Karl Brown teaches courses in modern European history, film and media studies, and the history of drugs and drinking at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. Before his academic career, he installed and operated brewpubs in Japan and Greece. Brown co-founded Second Salem Brewing Company in Whitewater and is an avid homebrewer of beer, cider, wine, and mead. 

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Watch the preview video here.

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio are among the most well-known Renaissance artists. They flourished due to the patronage of notable individuals, powerful rulers and civic organizations who commissioned their works. But what about the female half of the population? The Renaissance saw the rise of women artists who navigated many obstacles to succeed in the male-dominated Italian art world. Confident self-portraits, realistic still lifes, portraits of noted individuals and their families all reveal the women’s technical skill and ingenuity. By exploring works made by women, this course aims to reconsider a period of creative ingenuity and artistic excellence from their often-overlooked perspective.  

Osher Online Course - produced by the Osher National Resource Center

**To get to the course you will not be sent the Zoom link, but log into a portal (instructions will be provided to those enrolled)
**This course will be presented via Zoom and will not be recorded. Space is limited.**
**If you have a course package that you would like to use, please contact olli@sfsu.edu**

Introduction: https://vimeo.com/1033500407

Are you interested in stories rich with murder, intrigue, and sharp wit? This course will explore the Norse sagas, which are medieval tales rooted in Old Norse mythology, written in Iceland centuries after the Viking era. These stories range from realistic travel chronicles to epic sword-and-sorcery adventures, and they offer a fascinating glimpse into "Dark Age" swashbuckling. In this course we will also discuss how these stories continue to profoundly influence modern culture.

Instructor: Vic Peterson is the author of The Berserkers (Hawkwood, 2022; Recital, 2023), a novel set in a fictional Nordic country. He holds a BA in English from Kenyon College, and MA degrees in humanities from The University of Texas at Dallas and in religious studies from the University of Chicago, where he also completed coursework at the Booth School of Business. After a successful career as a business executive, Vic now focuses on writing and teaching. 

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

Watch the preview video here.

Last year marked the 130th anniversary of the enthronement of Nikolai II of Russia, the last Tsar in the Romanov dynasty, and the 120th anniversary of the birth of his only  son Alexei. In this lecture, we’ll take a sweeping look at Russia at the time of the last of the Romanovs and on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, from the royal family  down to peasants, who still constituted the majority of the Russian population despite rapid industrialization and urbanization. We’ll see how Russia moved closer and  closer to the Revolution and contemplate why the Bolsheviks ultimately won.

**This course will be taught via Zoom**

Watch the preview video here.

Your Write To Resilience is a guided wellness practice.  

This class provides participants with an opportunity to enhance their resilience through writing. This class is based upon extensive research which demonstrates that expressing our emotions through writing can improve both physical and mental well-being.  

Kathryn will facilitate six 90-minute classes using a different writing prompts to explore resilience. 

You will write in unrestricted 8 to 10-minute bursts. At the end of each burst, people can share what they have written if desired. This is not a writing instruction class. We do not engage in feedback or critiques.

Each week Kathryn will read poetry or prose and offer writing prompts on a variety of themes, e.g. human connection, gratitude, courage, or fear.  Topics will be curated based upon the needs of the group.

The classes will be taught using the Zoom learning platform.

**This class will be taught on Zoom**

Click to watch Introduction video

This course will take students on a guided tour of the history, discoveries and mysteries of the Dead Sea  Scrolls. In richly illustrated sessions, we’ll begin with an overview of the historical events leading up to the  era of the Scrolls. From there we’ll visit Qumran, the home of the Scrolls, then tell the comedy of errors in the Scrolls’ discovery and publication. But the core of the class will be a deep dive into the Scrolls themselves and what they tell us about early Judaism and Christianity. 

**This class is a Hybrid. This section of the class will be taught In-Person.**

Click to watch the course preview video.

Popular music has been packaged and promoted in many visually striking formats. “Sound and Vision” documents this evolution with hundreds of record covers, concert posters, and advertisements, from the days of wind-up gramophones through jazz, rock, soul, psychedelia, punk, and rap. Besides famous artifacts like  withdrawn Beatles and Rolling Stones LPs and Fillmore posters, the course will also  discuss work by famous artists like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Robert  Mapplethorpe used to promote recordings, and how the way music “looked” changed as record labels adopted signature styles and formats evolved from 78s, 45s, and LPs to cassettes and CDs.

**This class is a Hybrid. This section of the class will be taught on Zoom.**

Click to watch the course preview video.

Popular music has been packaged and promoted in many visually striking formats.  “Sound and Vision” documents this evolution with hundreds of record covers,  concert posters, and advertisements, from the days of wind-up gramophones  through jazz, rock, soul, psychedelia, punk, and rap. Besides famous artifacts like  withdrawn Beatles and Rolling Stones LPs and Fillmore posters, the course will also  discuss work by famous artists like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Robert  Mapplethorpe used to promote recordings, and how the way music “looked”  changed as record labels adopted signature styles and formats evolved from 78s,  45s, and LPs to cassettes and CDs. 

**This class will be taught In-Person**

Watch the preview video here.

Why is music so important? As the great scientist and humanist Oliver Sacks states, music has “the power  to induce brain states, thoughts, moods, mental landscapes, vision, transcendences, which are without  precedent, without parallel and which cannot be evoked by anything else.” At the same time, we revel in  the simple pleasures of the backbeat and in the joys of our favorite songs. How does an expanded  knowledge of musicology affect our listening experience? Can we deepen our appreciation of music by  exploring its relationship to culture? We will listen to music from many genres and discuss.  Optional reading materials will be made available.