UMass Boston Campus   

Ever wanted to learn more about the Bible, but don’t know how to begin? Whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise, the Bible is still a relevant text to the 21st century global citizen due to its history and influence. Even after teaching its contents to high school students for 40 years, Sharon Bilodeau still thinks so! Join this class to dive into the Books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth. These are the books that continue the biblical story of the liberation from slavery in Egypt and the wilderness years, into "the promised land." We will get to know the stories in all their unapologetic, ancient detail. We will also apply literary, historical critical and varied theological perspectives to glean an appreciation of the meaning, purpose and craft of the texts. It is not necessary to have attended the Fall (2025) session of this course. 

This poetry writing workshop will examine resistance poems written during significant periods of history from the American Revolution to the present day. Workshop participants will use published resistance poems as models and inspiration to write their own resistance poems, which can then be shared, discussed, and revised during the workshop. Among the poets we will read are Phillis Wheatley, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Allen Ginsberg, and Amanda Gorman. The workshop time will be devoted to discussion of published poems and participants’ poems.  The writing of poems, as Mary Oliver tells us, will need to be done at the solitude of the writer’s desk.  

Ever wanted to learn Arabic? This beginner-friendly multi-week course introduces the basics of the Arabic language through greetings, everyday expressions, and simple conversations. Participants will also explore cultural traditions, food, and customs from Arabic-speaking countries. Designed for absolute beginners, the course emphasizes interactive learning in a fun, relaxed environment. Each session combines language practice with cultural insights to build confidence and spark curiosity. By the end of the course, participants will be able to use simple Arabic expressions and gain a deeper appreciation of the culture that shapes the language. 

Johann Sebastian Bach spent the final twenty seven years of his career in Leipzig, Germany creating unsurpassed masterpieces such as the Mass in B Minor, St. Matthew's Passion and the Goldberg Variations. We will delve in these riches (among others), and the circumstances under which they were created. 

The United States has always interacted with foreign nations but only in the late 19th Century did it go abroad and begin to compete directly with other great powers and intervene violently in other nations. Since that time, the U.S. has been involved in many wars and smaller conflicts too numerous to enumerate. Are many Americans really aware of key realities of these numerous conflicts? What does the history of American foreign policy over the last century or so have to teach us about ourselves and our interactions with other peoples? Is it true that the United States has gone to war only reluctantly in opposition to the threats and aggressions of other states and individuals?  Has Washington always fostered and promoted democracies and avoided conflict at all costs? Can we identify the underlying motivations and aims for specific policies carried out at different times? How may a critical examination of key episodes in the nation’s foreign affairs from the late 19th Century to the present help us grasp the dangers of the modern era? This course will examine: the Annexation of Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War.  

If you can tell a story, write a letter, or send an email, you’re already an accomplished writer. This course is about developing your imagination, and creating characters and story lines. No problem with spelling and grammar; I’m your editor. You can write in any style: poetry, short story, personal memoir…just write every day! The most important part of this course is writing your autograph. You’ll need it at your first book signing! 

This class will provide information on different basic crochet techniques and go on to learn Amigurumi the Japanese technique to create different stuffed animals or objects. 

What is liberation theology? Why is it controversial? This course explores this combination of spirituality and social activism, which is centered on the belief that one cannot separate religious faith from the struggle for a just society. We will examine the history of this belief system, a case study showing its impact on social movements in Brazil, and debates about it. The last include the question of whether it is dying or is still relevant and whether it is more Marxist than religious. Except for some informational presentations, the course will be interactive. 

The course will look at the past, present, and future of unions and the world of work. In the late 19th century, unions established a presence in our political and economic life, facing constant violence and opposition. Workers organized on an unprecedented scale in the 1930s, leading to a long period of prosperity and labor peace in the post WWII era. Millions of Americans entered the middle class and established organized labor as a vehicle for social mobility. In the late 1970s and 1980s the business community, supported by an emerging right-wing political opposition, launched an assault on union influence and drove an agenda that diminished the percentage of American workers in unions from 35% to 10%. Globalization and the fissuring of the economy contributed to labor's decline as well. There are signs of creative forms of organizing in the changing workforce – among low- waged workers, women and workers of color, and workers in the new "innovation economy.” The last two sessions will focus on the increasingly precarious conditions at work, the gig economy, some of the new forms of organizing, and whether organized labor can challenge fundamental issues of income inequality and global corporate power. This course was previously offered in Fall 2025. 

Learn simple, chair-friendly practices to steady the nervous system. Each session blends brief education (why breathing helps), guided meditation, and gentle movement you can do at home—no mat required. We’ll cover pacing the breath, grounding with the senses, and light mobility for stiff spots. Leave with a 10-minute daily routine and a personal “calm kit.” 

For oil colored pencil drawings, we will use Vaseline petroleum jelly to blend with the pigment of the colored pencils, which creates the oil colored pencil. Drawing subjects may include both human and animal portraits.  

The contemporary world has seen renewed and sharpened contests between competing (although sometimes overlapping) political worldviews; authoritarianism, democracy, liberalism, conservatism, social democracy, communism, fascism, and nationalism. This course will try to better understand the underlying philosophical ideas of these ideologies by considering the thought of such figures as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Mill, Marx, Bernstein, Lenin, Schmitt and Arendt. The lectures and class discussions will assume no outside class reading, but relevant readings will be suggested. The goal of the course is not to persuade anyone to endorse or reject any view, but rather to explore what can be said for or against it in order to deepen our understanding of the position. 

Join us for a tour of Boston’s colorful religious history. What basic beliefs did the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims share? Did Cardinal Cushing support Billy Graham’s Boston Crusades? How did Malcolm X’s pilgrimage to Mecca lay the groundwork for the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center? What does the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge symbolize? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more. Boston is home to the spiritual and the skeptical alike; if you’re interested in local history, this course is for you. 

Arguments about sex differences are a part of the current zeitgeist, so a foundational understanding of how sex works on a biological level is critical to being an informed voter and citizen. In this course we will explore how plants and animals determine sex, why they do that, how it evolved, and what the term ‘sex’ even means.  This course doesn’t have a political agenda, but hopes to empower its students to think intelligently about political issues of our time. 

What was it like to be sick in Russia? As a health care system was created in the late 19th century, traditional folk medicines and European specialists were replaced by Russian doctors and hospitals.  How did these doctors view the hospitals they worked in?  How did patients experience them? The writer Anton Chekhov used his medical training to explore 19th century Russian hospitals, and the writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn examined 20th century hospital experiences in his novel The Cancer Ward.  How does illness relate to our basic humanity?  How do healers and healing support our self-understanding in our most vulnerable moments? 

Often one runs out of ideas for new poems. This course is designed to help you find new source material to create new poems.  By focusing on a topic, such as the Boston Molasses Flood for example, or paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, you will do research and then write poems based on this research. By the end of the course, the goal is to have about 5-6 poems that could be the steppingstone to a chapterbook or longer length collection.  You will learn to develop and flex your creative muscle. 

Are you going to France or to a French-speaking country? If so, you need to be able to communicate at least at a minimum to show that you are making an effort toward the culture of the host country. The people there will greatly appreciate (even if they answer in English) and may even be friendlier. In this class you will learn French basic vocabulary and phrases in a conversational setting. The course will integrate the Mango Languages computer program to practice and reinforce your new skills at home. 

The Bauhaus existed between 1919 and 1933. In this brief time, it revolutionized art instruction, and the world of design. Its instructors were a who's who of famous artists such as Paul Klee, Vasily Kandinsky and Joseph Albers. We will learn about the school's founding, its methods and the legacy it has left us. 

This course aims to unveil the dark, draconic dealings of the early Cold War with a particular focus on the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in shaping American interventionist policies worldwide. The topics covered will range from: U.S assistance of former Nazi personnel for their own gain, regime changes in countries such as The Philippines, Guatemala, & Iran, the earliest US involvement in Southeast Asia, obsession with Cuban regime change, and the domestic sociopolitical dynamics that made such foreign policy possible. Fundamentally the goal is to uncover and come to terms with the dark origins of American hegemony. 

Participants analyze Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, through lenses of history, psychoanalytic theory and our current tortured historical moment.  We will consider Morrison’s impact on the work of psychoanalyst Dionne Powell, and novelist Jesmyn Ward.  Their insights help us understand impulses driving the current wave of book-banning and censorship, and the dangers of these impulses if they remain unexamined.  The course title is an inversion of psychoanalyst Hans Loewald’s phrase “When Ghosts Become Ancestors.” Instead of considering the growth that comes with recognition and acknowledgement, Beloved requires consideration of the consequences when we refuse to acknowledge and recognize our painful history.