“Beauty will save the world” (Dostoevsky). “People can be killed for poetry here” (Mandelstam). “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” (Churchill). These are just a few well-known sayings about Russia that require further consideration. What are Russia’s core cultural values? How does Russia view its position in the world, its cultural and historical merits and flaws? How is Russia viewed by the West? This course will survey over 1,000 years of Russian culture seeking to better understand the country’s culture and national identity through its art, literature, and music as well as its core values. Class will be structured around a lecture, some video (interviews and music), and class discussion. Readings will include folktales, poetry, short stories, and nonfiction.

We are interacting with artificial intelligence (AI) in our everyday lives. For example, search engines make extensive use of AI. The recommendations that you get from streaming services like Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube are generated by AI algorithms. AI is essential for navigation searches like Google maps. This course will cover the history of AI, an overview of the field of AI in non-technical terms, and then look at the ethics of current and future AI. We will consider such questions as whether human work will be made obsolete by AI, can morality be programmed into an AI agent, could an AI be conscious, and is there a possibility of runaway superintelligence?

This introductory course will examine contemporary issues in Native American Life including the achievements and concerns affecting Native American peoples today. Critical thinking and cultural understanding will be key components. The historical influences and outcomes of Native American peoples as they may apply today to contemporary issues will be reviewed. Students will gain knowledge of Native Americans within a larger social, cultural context.

How can we overcome the polarization that currently divides us? How can we find solutions to the challenges we face in our communities, our country, and our world? In this course, you will develop your skills and capacities to address vital public issues where there are no easy answers, issues that require people to work together to build bridges and envision new norms. You will develop a deeper understanding of how we can communicate respectfully and authentically, sharing our ideas and adapting to a complex, ever-changing world. Through uncovering assumptions, listening to other perspectives, and testing ideas in small groups, you will identify common ground on important public issues. This course encourages inquisitive discussion, empathic listening, deep reflection, and a sense of community.

This course is designed to familiarize ourselves with a variety of poetic forms to improve our knowledge of poetry and increase our versatility as writers. Poets have long sought to facilitate change. We will study poems from free verse to sestinas that address the problems of wars, climate change, racism, and our current pandemic. Poets that we will discuss include Richard Hugo, Joy Harjo, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Terrance Hayes, and others. The course will cover old forms like haikus, sonnets and sestinas, as well as recently invented forms and new approaches to traditional forms. Participants will have some time to write during most classes.

Try to imagine how the brain works and develops during infancy and beyond. We will learn about how infants themselves (perhaps your grandchildren) learn. How do they come to understand and use language? How do they learn to reach and walk, avoiding obstacles and pitfalls? How do they learn to read emotional expressions and use their sense to navigate the social and physical world? Their challenges and successes are like many we face as adults, using some of the same strategies to maintain and develop new skills and abilities late in life.

The 20th century witnessed the rise, development, and eventual disintegration and collapse of communism as a system of political and social organization that impacted the entire world in numerous ways. This course provides a comprehensive overview of the trajectory of international communism, focusing not only on the major revolutions in Russia and China, but also on lesser-known communist movements that struggled and failed to achieve their objectives but still left their marks everywhere. Communism was a system of politics, of social organization, of culture, language, art, and belief. We will examine each of those dimensions in the course of our journey.

Capitalism is the most dynamic and constantly changing economic system in world history. It penetrates and shapes all contemporary institutions. It took more than 250 years (1600-1850) to develop and it did so first in England. Focusing primarily on England, we will explore the conflicts and crises that caused old customs, ideas, and political systems to be eroded, and we will examine the new institutional forms that allowed capitalism to arise in their place. Understanding how capitalism arose may help us understand its current forms and what can drive change.

Like or hate “Yellowstone,” the TV series? Want to write your own script? Join in a writing course and complete a short screenplay. Work at your level, Beginner to Advanced. Screenplays are short on words but big on plot and character. Using film clips, Academy Award-winning published screenplays, and lecture, you will learn the dynamics of creating an engaging story. Weekly writing assignments with self- critique will put you on course to finish a short screenplay. Final session includes what it looks like to move into production.

All of us have experienced loss, whether the loss of a loved one, the loss of an identity, or the loss of a connection to the past. The effect on us individually and collectively has been a prevalent topic in literature throughout the ages. This class addresses the concepts of memory in relation to love, loss, and trauma through literature. We will read a selection of poems, plays, and short stories that address the pain, burden, beauty, and benefit of memories from loss. Many of these recommended texts will show how these types of loss often interweave to reveal the profound nature of the human experience. The readings will depend on the type of literature we are addressing; for instance, some weeks we will focus on three or four poems, where other weeks we will read a short story. However, the reading of plays and short stories will never exceed 40 pages. We will look at authors from different eras and locations, ranging from Ireland to the Caribbean. The list includes authors such as Eavan Boland, James Joyce, Derek Walcott, and C.D. Wright. Through readings, this class will attempt to shine a light on how loss and memory help define who we are as individuals and communities.

We will focus on the three great catastrophes between 1914 and 1945 – the Great War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War – as well as some lesser catastrophes. The subject matter will be expanded beyond the West to include major historical developments elsewhere in the world.