Recap of Spring 2023 Courses

Viewing The American Landscape: From Frederic Church to Maya Lin with Lewis Shepard
From the 1850s to 2020 American artists, using a variety of styles, sizes and materials, responded to the Landscape as theme and inspiration. Sometimes their views were descriptive, conforming to historic precedents, and at other moments their works were inspired by contemporary events or personal emotions. They expanded on traditions and styles from Europe, Asia and most recently, astronomical explorations. 

Frederic Church painted in oils on canvas. Maya Lin used glass beads on a museum wall. Underwood & Underwood made stereo views to be enjoyed at home. Michael Mazur painted and printed New England views using a variety of techniques. NASA has given us overviews of our own planet and beyond our solar system!

Recent Irish Fiction with Rhoda Flaxman
Sterne, Swift, Stoker, Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Heaney! How do 20C. Irish writers stack up against the iconic tradition of earlier Irish writers? In addition, what is it about Ireland that inspires and nurtures some of the world’s greatest writers? Is it that a literary tradition flourishes in cultures where older, usually oral forms are met head-on by the challenge of modernization? Living on the cusp between tradition and modernity in a formerly oral culture may help us account for the outsized production of excellence in Irish writers today.

This semester we will explore these questions and others as we read and discuss recent novels and short stories from Ireland. Starting with a session on the poetry of Yeats and Heaney, we’ll read short novels by Banville (“The Sea”) and Claire Keegan (“Foster” and “Small Things Like These”), as well as a variety of short fiction by important writers such as Edna O’Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Frank O’Connor, Colm Toibin, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, and Hilary Mantel.

Russia: Past and Present with George Swope
This statement often rings true for many who are not familiar with Russian history. And its history is critically important to understanding its present because, as an old Russian saying states, “Russia is a country with an unpredictable past”.

As the historian Orlando Figes has written, “Russia is a country held together by ideas rooted in its distant past, histories continuously reconfigured and repurposed to suit its present needs and reimagine its future… No other country has reimagined its own past so frequently; none has a history so subjected to the vicissitudes of ruling ideologies. History in Russia is political.”

While highlighting important historical events, this course primarily focuses on the essential ideas/themes in Russian’s past such as the role of the state, the influence of its geography, and its messianic mission in the world. How have these ideas/themes repeatedly been revised to fit the needs of the present, including the 21st century. Class meetings are a combination of readings, presentations and group discussion. 

Environmental History of the US in Three Parts: Part I with John Cumbler
Scientists have come to say that the Holocene Epoch for the last 20,000 years has now ended, and we have now entered the Anthropocene geologic era in which human activity is the dominant influence on the physical world. This is a huge shift in geological history going back to the very formation of the earth. 

This course is the first of three that will explore how we arrived at the Anthropocene Epoch, with focus on North America. Part One will look at how humans shaped the physical world in North America and how the physical world affected that shaping. It will begin at the dawn of the Holocene age and end with the forces that set the stage for the Anthropocene. The course will be a hybrid of lecture and discussion. We will focus our reading around Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.” We will also discuss Thoreau’s “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.” Students will be expected to carefully read “Walden,” and to keep in mind I am not interested in Transcendentalism but in Thoreau’s serious critique of the New England economy. 

Reproductive Health and Human Rights with Bonnie Shepard
This course breaks out of the box of the polarized pro-choice/pro-life debate in the US to look at all issues related to reproductive health from the perspective of international human rights agreements. This course will include the perspectives of the reproductive justice movement led by women of color in the USA, which … “has three primary principles: (1) the right not to have a child; (2) the right to have a child; and (3) the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments.” (Ross 2017)

One suggested weekly reading (maximum 20 pages) and other optional videos or readings will be provided. After a brief introduction, the main teaching method will be guided discussion based on the teacher’s experiences, the readings, and participants’ questions. An optional activity: Participants will be given information on how to do human rights research on any reproductive health topic that interests them and can bring what they found to class.

Film Art with Claude Kerven
Film Art is an introduction to the evolution of cinema from 1895-1990, taught in four semesters. This course covers the contributions of the screenwriter, director, cinematographer, editor and composer. By the end of the course students will have a far better understanding of the process of filmmaking and how it relates to appreciating the history and evolution of cinema. 
This course will be useful for the layman who wants to know more about film for personal enjoyment; or for the student hoping to enhance their college applications, and even for professionals who need to be more familiar and knowledgeable about the film-industry. If you love film, then this course is for you. Film Art will help you learn more about film analysis, period genres, movements in film style, film production, and more, and will deepen your understanding and enjoyment of watching movies. 

Conversations in Contemporary Ethical Issues with Jennifer McCrickerd
Most of us have a pretty clear sense of what we want to do, as well as what the law requires of us. Additionally, we have a good idea of what our friends, society and all the rest say, but we might still wonder what is the right thing to do, at least in some circumstances. Or, whether our views are correct or, even if confident we are correct, whether we fully understand the reasons someone might reasonably disagree. These are questions people have wrestled with for centuries, though it might seem that differences of opinion about what is ethical are starker than ever before. 

In this course, we will discuss a wide variety of ethical issues determined by participants, but possibly including:    -issues of immigration, taxation, justice, individual rights, medical ethics, environmental ethics, ethical issues arising from recent innovations in technological abilities. The goal of our discussions will be to become more informed and nuanced in our thinking on specific issues, while also becoming more confident regarding some of the underlying fundamental ethical issues such as:
 - what sorts of things can have rights? 
 - where do rights come from? 
  -If respecting someone’s rights creates harms to others and the harm can only be prevented by violating rights, where should we land and what are the implications of whatever position we take?\

We will also discuss how to talk about ethics across difference and about why people who know what is ethical might still behave unethically and how we can best decrease chances for unethical behavior in ourselves and others.
This is a discussion -based course with articles made available as a grounding for conversation. Participants will leave the course with a deeper understanding of the complexity of thinking about ethics as well as increased ability to think about ethics in a more nuanced manner.