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- A Crash Course in Western Art History
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Dates: 9/22/2026 - 11/10/2026
Times: 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
Days: Tu
Sessions: 8
Building: Online via Zoom
Room:
Instructor: Patricia Hagen
THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Each week will offer a fast, broad sweep of different eras/-ism(s) (e.g, Expressionism, Mannerism) to see what features most define each one. We won’t have time for nuance, but by the end of the class you should be able to do a rough identification of paintings you see in a museum. Class sessions will be focused on looking at and talking about paintings and some sculpture. Classes will begin with a bit of lecture about the week’s subject, with reference to representative works, followed by discussion. LIMIT 20
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- Film Noir: Return to The Shadows
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Participants will explore films of the genre called film noir through weekly film viewings and, if time allows, discussion. Fall-term films are Criss Cross(1948), Leave Her to Heaven (1946), The Killers (1946), Phantom Lady (1944), Gilda (1948), The Blue Dahlia (1939), Hell’s Half Acre (1954), and Sudden Fear (1952).
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- Great Books: The Civically Engaged Reader
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Discuss as a group brief essays, memoirs, stories, and poems relating to the idea of associating with others in society. Writers include Aristotle, Kafka, Jane Addams, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, and Robert Frost. Participants are expected to read the material prior to class each week. The book has enough good material for at least three terms, so you won't have to buy another book if you take this class another term. LIMIT 16
Book (required):
The Civically Engaged Reader, The Great Books Foundation, ISBN 9780945159490
NOTE: The book is required. You can order it from the Great Books Foundation or find it used on sites such as Amazon.
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- Hollywood Outlaw: Robert Redford’s Alter Ego or a Comfortable Mask? (2nd four weeks)
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Robert Redford made playing casually charming criminals look easy, as shown in the two popular and commercially successful films that launched his super stardom. In both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1968) and The Sting (1973), he and Paul Newman cemented an influential lifelong friendship based on mutual liking, respect for their craft, and shared goals. Prior to viewing those two films, we’ll watch Hollywood Outlaw, a 2005 feature-length film biography that provides details about Redford’s life from which to draw inferences about his interest in the historical Sundance Kid and actual Outlaw trail and Hole-in-the-Wall gang, as well as his later decision to launch the Sundance Institute with Newman and then the Sundance Film Festival. In his and our final film, The Old Man & a Gun (2018), he again plays a real bank robber and reprises the role of casually charming criminal.
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- James Baldwin and His Urgent Lessons for Our Time
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
James Baldwin is as relevant today in America as he was two generations ago. With razor-sharp insight, crystal-clear writing, and unapologetic assertiveness, he challenges us to acknowledge and confront the lies and betrayals embedded in our national narrative. He does this with generosity and love, offering a redemptive path through our divisive and violent times. Each class includes both discussion and multi-media presentations.
Book (required):
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., 2020, ISBN 9780525575337 (softcover); 9780525575344 (ebook)
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- Modern Irish Poetry
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Dates: 9/21/2026 - 11/9/2026
Times: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Days: M
Sessions: 8
Building: Online via Zoom
Room:
Instructor: Tom Zelman
THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Short of flying over the green hills of the western counties and landing at Shannon Airport, modern Irish literature offers the best sense of what Ireland is all about. The class will focus upon the work of four writers—William Butler Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, and Eavan Boland--authors whose poetry lovingly conceptualizes Irish history, Irish land, Irish mythology, and Irish viewpoints. The class sessions will be largely discussion, with some supplementary background lecture. Read the assigned literary pieces, share your thoughts. LIMIT 20
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- Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels: Irresistible, Essential Explorations of Human Nature
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Published within seven years of each other, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) quickly became classics in England and Europe. Highly readable, exciting, brilliant in their invention, and entertaining on many levels, they were often treated as children's literature up until the screen revolution. But these fictional stories of journeys are very adult books, probing the deep recesses of what it means to be a human and the problematic nature of society. We will spend four weeks with Crusoe alone on his island and four weeks with Gulliver on his surprising voyages. We should have lively discussions on these unforgettable books.
Books (required):
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, ISBN 9780199553976
- Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, ISBN 9780141439495
Note: While other editions can work, it's easier for our discussions to be, literally, on the same page by using these inexpensive editions available on Amazon.
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- Tales and Terror: Fairy Tales Uncensored
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Stripping away the polished veneer of modern Disney adaptions, this class uncovers the dark origins of the stories we learned in childhood. Looking at the Brothers Grimm and other interesting sources, we will dissect the cultural anxieties embedded in these narratives, look at their histories, view video clips, and have fun revisiting fairytales and their many retellings over the centuries.
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- Vocalizing the Dramatic Monologue: Donne and Browning
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Dates: 9/21/2026 - 11/9/2026
Times: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Days: M
Sessions: 8
Building: Online via Zoom
Room:
Instructor: Warren Howe
THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
We will read aloud the dramatic monologues of John Donne and Robert Browning, doing our best to capture tone, nuance, and emotion of the speaker in the poem. Poetry is meant to be heard, not merely read silently, and this focus will bring about the full impact of these remarkable monologues. Come prepared to use your voices.
Books (required):
- My Last Duchess and Other Poems by Robert Browning (Dover), ISBN 0486277836
- Any edition of selected or complete poems of John Donne. Several inexpensive used copies of these books are available online.
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- Wonderful Watercolor
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THIS CLASS IS IN SESSION. Please contact to program office with enrollment questions.
Open to beginners, intermediates, and those who just want to get together to paint while inspiring others! We emphasize fun and creativity. The weekly sessions consist of a brief demonstration, time to paint and ask questions, and the opportunity to share individual projects. Basic watercolor supplies are required. LIMIT 20
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