Courses for Fall 2023
Click Here for a printable version
|
NOTE: Classes will not be held on Sept 25 and Oct 16th. If you write or would like to write, this workshop is for you. You don’t need any previous experience or any conception of what you want to write about – just the desire to put words on paper. Each class meeting will include 2-4 writing sessions. I will start each session by offering a prompt and giving a time limit. We will write for the time proposed, then take a pause to read aloud and respond. The process is simple. Prompts are not assignments – you are free to use them as springboards for writing or ignore them entirely and write whatever comes to mind. Reading, too, is optional, as is responding. Responses focus on whatever you think works in a piece (for example, particulars of language, the way a writer creates character, scene, place, time; conveys thought, emotion, action; evokes feeling, mood, tension; startles, satisfies, saddens, elates, etc.). This workshop approaches writing as a form of discovery and expression, a release from expectations and conventions, a way to remember, to understand, to invent, to entertain ourselves and others, to explore and experiment, to relate experience or transform it, while "freely ranging within the zodiac of [our] own wit" (Alexander Pope). Karen Vrotsos has taught literature and writing for a few decades at various levels and institutions including Columbia College, Barnard College, the Wardlaw-Hartridge School, and community organizations in New York and New Jersey. In 2014, while transitioning to work as an editor, Karen trained as a workshop facilitator in the Amherst Writers and Artists method. She has been attending and facilitating writing workshops ever since. On May 31, 2023, she moved to Salisbury full time with her husband and their dog. She loves to read, bike, bake, row, swim, write, and coach writers. Instructor: Karen Vrotsos See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
This class will explore the experiences of many celebrated German and Austrian artists and intellectuals seeking refuge in the United States from the Nazi take-over of Europe. A PowerPoint presentation of fascinating photographs will complement the amazing stories of those below, among others: o Madeleine Albright, born in Prague; then 1938 London, return to Prague 1948, then Denver. o Bertolt Brecht, born in Augsburg, Germany; then Munich, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, 1941 Santa Monica, 1947 return to Europe, 1949 East Berlin. o Albert Einstein, born in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany; then Munich, Pavia, Italy, Switzerland, Berlin, 1933 emigration to U.S. Princeton, N.J. o Henry Kissinger, born in Fürth, Bavaria; then 1938 London, New York, now Kent, CT. o Otto Klemperer, born in Breslau, Prussia; then Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Strasbourg, Cologne, 1933 Switzerland, 1935 Los Angeles, 1947 Budapest, Zürich o Hedy Lamarr, born in Vienna; then 1931 Berlin,1935 Paris, 1937 London, then Hollywood o Fritz Lang, born in Vienna; then 1913 Paris, Vienna, WWI, 1918, Berlin, 1933 Paris, 1936 Hollywood. o Thomas Mann, born in Lübeck, Germany; then Munich, Switzerland, 1939 Princeton, N.J., Los Angeles, 1952 Zürich. o Edward Teller, born in Budapest; then Germany, England, Copenhagen, 1935 Washington D.C. o Salka Viertel, born in Sambor, Galicia, Austria; then Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, 1928 Hollywood, 1953 Klosters, Switzerland. o Kurt Weill, born in Dessau, Germany; then Berlin, 1933 Paris, 1935 London and New York. o Billy Wilder, born in Sucha Beskidska Poland; then Vienna, 1926 Berlin, 1933 Hollywood Click Here for Recording of the Sept 18 Recording of Tom Gruenewald’s Class: Exiles Click Here for Recording of the Oct 2 Recording of Tom Gruenewald’s Class: Exiles Click Here for Recording of the Oct 16 Recording of Tom Gruenewald’s Class: Exiles Click Here for Recording of the Nov 6 Recording of Tom Gruenewald’s Class: Exiles Instructor: Thomas Gruenewald See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
Have you ever wondered what else Pyotr Ilyitch composed? Well, lots… of really great music. This class will present the in-depth biography created by Dr. Robert Greenberg for The The Teaching Company's Great Courses. We will follow up each week's lecture by hearing excellent performances of some of the works mentioned in the biography and some lesser known works as well. I hope you will join us for some of the most beautiful, melodic and timeless music ever written. (IMHO, of course). Instructor: John Robinson See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
Most of you are familiar with the Cold War because you lived through it, and some of you just took Bob Rumsey's course on the Cold War. The documentary film course attempts to bring to life key moments in the Cold War, such as the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and more. These films are especially relevant today, as it may well be that the Cold War Phase Two has begun. Instructor: Laurance Rand See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
In 1846, Francis Parkman, a recent Harvard College graduate, spent three weeks living cheek by jowl with a tribe of Oglala Sioux in their tipi village in what is today southeastern Wyoming. One year later, Parkman published The Oregon Trail, his account of that eventful trip and a subsequent American classic. We'll use his book as our entree to the settlement of the vast area of the continent from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean that over the following decades would round out the United States. It was a world in motion. What less adventurous contemporaries called the Great American Desert was in fact populated by disparate groups of people on the move, beginning with the settlers themselves in their covered wagons, or "white tops." Contesting their arrival were numerous Native tribes, who sensed that this influx of pale faces threatened their own survival. Ushering the largely untutored immigrants into this new world were French-Canadians, often disparagingly called "white Indians" by their proteges, who nevertheless needed their expertise. Veterans of the disappearing fur trade in the Rocky Mountains, known as Mountain Men, gave the settlers the benefit of their own specific skills. The occasional Boston Brahmin, of whom Parkman was one, went west out of curiosity. Big-game hunters from Europe joined the parade. They were on safari in the American West, a hunters' paradise of the sort that their descendants would find in Africa in the following century. Natives of Hawaii found a place in the evolving west, usually as a sequel to their service as sailors. Mormons, fleeing religious persecution in the eastern states, followed the sun toward the Rocky Mountains in search of safety and a site for their New Jerusalem. Observing this transition from the sidelines were Mexicans, inhabitants of the remains of the once enormous Spanish Empire. nI'll include a PowerPoint presentation to illustrate my talks.n Instructor: See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
This is an update to a previous survey of many of the modern gadgets we interact with every day. We will take a peek at how some of these things actually work - from supermarket scanners to cellphones. I will include three new topics to take a look at: cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. Click Here for the Recording of the September 20th Recording of Dick Paddock’s Class: Technology Around Us Click Here for the Recording of the September 27th Recording of Dick Paddock’s Class: Technology Around Us Click Here for the Recording of the October 11th Recording of Dick Paddock’s Class: Technology Around Us Click Here for the Recording of the October 18th Recording of Dick Paddock’s Class: Technology Around Us Instructor: Richard Paddock See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
PLEASE NOTE: THIS COURSE HAS BEEN CANCELLED. Instructor: Jerry Jamin See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
The 2022-2023 term of the Supreme Court ended in June with a flurry of important and controversial decisions. Nothing new for the Roberts Court. Or is it the Roberts Court? With public opinion and confidence in the Court ebbing to new lows and several Court justices embroiled in ethical issues, the Chief Justice has had his chance to redirect the Court. But has he? We will cover the main decisions of the Court this past term and look at the issues undermining the Court's standing in the eyes of many Americans. Instructor: Laurance Rand See this instructor's bio | ||||
|
NOTE: Classes will be held on Zoom only from now on. We'll devote our first class to the question of Shakespearean authorship, or who really wrote the plays commonly attributed to William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon? In the following classes we'll read two of the plays that the anti-Stratfordians - yes, that's what they call themselves - might point to in triumph as evidence that this denizen of the limited world of a small market town in deeply rural England couldn't possibly have been their author. Richard II displays a substantial knowledge of court ritual and intrigue that almost certainly would not have been possessed by the son of a minor country dignitary. The Merchant of Venice evokes the Italian city-state to a degree that some subsequent scholars have declared to be incompatible with a lack of extensive first-hand experience of Italy itself. For what it's worth, I myself am at least as skeptical of the claims of the anti-Stratfordians as they are of Shakespeare's authorship. But even though the debate has generated more heat than light, the heat itself is often hilarious and always entertaining. Instructor: See this instructor's bio |
