Recap of Fall 2021 Courses
A Cultural History of 19th Century Russia with George Swope
“For the past two hundred years the arts in Russia have served as an arena for political, philosophical and religious debate in the absence of a parliament or a free press….Nowhere has the artist been more burdened with the task of moral leadership and national prophecy, nor more feared and persecuted by the state. Alienated from official Russia by their politics, and from peasant Russia by their education, Russia’s artists took it upon themselves to create a national community of values and ideas through literature and art. What did it mean to be a Russian? What was Russia’s place and mission in the world? And where was the true Russia? In Europe or in Asia? St Petersburg or Moscow? These were the ‘accursed questions’ that occupied the mind of every serious writer, literary critic and historian, painter and composer, theologian and philosopher in the golden age of Russian culture from Pushkin to Pasternak.
Jerome Kern on Broadway and in Hollywood with Marc Strauss
Jerome Kern (1885 - 1945), early 20th century composer in the West End of London, on Broadway, and in Hollywood, wrote over 700 tunes over four decades, leaving the world with some fifty-odd famous tunes immediately recognizable and hummed to this day nearly 80 years after his death. Songs such as "Old Man River," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "The Way You Look Tonight," "All the Things You Are," "The Last Time I Saw Paris," and "Long Ago and Far Away" remain essential standards in the Great American Songbook. Kern was acknowledged by both George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers as their most important early influence, and Gershwin was even Kern's rehearsal pianist on several shows in the teens. In many ways a link between the European operetta tradition and the Broadway musical style, Kern 's songwriting showed a remarkable evolution toward greater and greater sophistication and a truly American style.
Shipwrecks of Cape Cod: Stories of Tragedy and Triumph with Don Wilding
Cape Cod’s outer beach has always been known for its shipwrecks. Between 1626 and the mid-20th century, this solitary 40-mile stretch of beach and sandbars saw the demise of over 3,000 vessels. It’s been said that if all the wrecks were raised, one could walk from Provincetown to Chatham without getting his or her feet wet.
Join Cape Cod historian Don Wilding, author of the new book, “Shipwrecks of Cape Cod: Stories of Tragedy & Triumph,” for an extensive look back at some of these disasters, from the Sparrow Hawk in 1626 to the Eldia in 1984. He’ll also cover the heroic efforts of the U.S. Lifesaving Service and Coast Guard.
Posthuman - Life in the 21st Century's Anonymous Society with Fred Magee
What will that world look like? Answering that question is the goal of this course.
Session I: The increasing influence of Medialogy
I define Medialogy as a synthesis of technology and media that enables people to bypass traditional social practices by eliminating the need for human beings to be physically near each other. In just one generation, Medialogy has enabled a world in which human life no longer requires institutions based on place.
Session II: The Anonymous Society
Until the past 30 years, every generation in history has interacted with other people directly and in person. In the Anonymous Society, nearly every social institution can be represented through a screen – from banking to government and more, enabling people to trade faces for interfaces and remain anonymous to each other.
Session III: The new social fabric of society
As people have adopted and adapted to combining presence and anonymity in their lives, society’s structure has changed. A range of participation, from displacement to full acceptance, has transformed the way information and relationships move. Detachment and alienation drives distrust of institutions – reshaping everyday life.
Session IV: The larger forces shaping the next fifty years
Medialogy is in its infancy as an influencer. Artificial intelligence (AI), combined with Virtual Reality (AR/VR) will improve in their ability to establish alternative human relationships. At the same time, as climate change and population growth shape the future narrative, people will be increasingly reliant on mediated life.
Session V: Posthuman – A World without the need for people
The concept that human beings are the apex of creation has fueled social structure throughout history. In the 21st century, there will be more people, fewer resources, and an insufficient supply of useful work to sustain humanity. For the first time, human beings will be a disposable commodity rather than a source for growth.
Contemporary Artists of Cape Cod: Guest Lecture Series, Part 4, with Robert Rindler
This course is designed to introduce participants to extraordinarily fine artists working among us on the Cape today, and to engage with them in a spirited, intelligent and illuminating dialogue. For each of five weeks, we will meet, experience, and explore the diverse work of artists who have achieved significant success and acclaim in recent years.
These transformational leaders in the arts, deeply involved in creative inquiry, continue to expand our perspectives on how art is being redefined within our current cultural, social and political environment.
We will hear from 10 local and noteworthy Fine Art makers, (BOB BAILEY, CHERIE MITTENTHAL, ESTEBAN del VALLE, and LAURA SHABOTT, ROMOLO DEL DEO and DAN RANALLI …so far)...from different media disciplines, who are now or have recently been exhibiting their work in local galleries and museums where we can see their art first hand.
Comedies of Oscar Wilde with Ed Golden
The many faces of Oscar Wilde – incomparable wit, prolific essayist, poet, outrageous public personality, notorious gay man married with two sons, convicted criminal in one of the most famous cases in world annals, abject pauper succumbing to an early death after a prison sentence at hard labor – surely make him one of the most fascinating characters in literary if not all of history. Our focus is on Oscar Wilde playwright whose superb comedies of manners rank him in the highest echelons of world theatre. His most celebrated piece THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST will be followed by AN IDEAL HUSBAND, and, if time permits, A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE. Join audiences the world over who, since the 1890s, have laughed from start to finish at Wilde’s sustained brilliance as he takes aim at the follies and foibles of the English upper classes.
The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James with Rhoda Flaxman
This semester we’ll tackle James’ best –known and most popular work. Besides being a fabulously interesting read, “Portrait” is extremely important to the history of the novel. Janus-like, James writes a gripping story in the realistic novelistic mode of 19th Century fiction yet points ahead to the 20th century modernist novel of Joyce and Woolf. Driving the action inward, he explores the psychology of Isabel Archer, whose consciousness—her perception and internal life--is the primary focus of the novel. James is also modern because he experiments with the form of the novel (the medium, i.e., the point of view and structure) in his works after 1890s and is no longer interested only in the content (plot, characters, themes). He is one of the first to create a body of theory about the novel (its point of view and structure in particular), often employing the terminology of art. Finally, he paves the way to dispense with linear time and conventional plots to capture the flow, drift, and associations of minds.