Recap of Spring 2018 Courses
The Music of the Sixties: From Top to Bottom and End to End, with Fred Magee
People sometimes think of music in terms of the decade it was created, a trait that makes it easy to wall off and overlook the social and political trends that led up to and influenced the musicians of the time. The 1960s were perhaps the best example of this tendency in the past 100 years.
The sheer diversity of the music, from folk to surf music, Motown to the British Invasion, Soul to jazz, and the blurring of lines between genres has defined that decade in the minds of many as a time when music was its most creative, as well as a decade that seems to stand by itself.
In fact, many of the artists, songs and styles that seemed to burst out spontaneously were influenced by the history and social movements of the previous 20 years. This course, which focuses primarily on the music, will also draw out ideas about how the 1940s and 1950s influenced the creation of Rock & Roll, protest music, soul, and the emergence of the most influential creative voices who included Joan Baez, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane and the scores of other musicians and performers who came of age in the 60s, but whose music germinated in the decades before.
A History of Eastham, with Don Wilding
First known as Nauset, Eastham was home to the Nauset tribe for thousands of years before exploration by Champlain and the Pilgrims, and it is now known as the “Gateway to the Cape Cod National Seashore.” Whether it’s the U.S. Lifesaving Service and its shipwreck rescues, Cape Cod’s oldest windmill, the revival meetings of “Thumpertown,” the Cape’s most iconic lighthouse, or tales of sea captains and rum runners, Eastham is truly rich in history and tradition. In these lecture sessions with historic photos, Don Wilding wanders back in time through the Outer Cape’s back roads, sand dunes and solitary beaches to uncover Eastham’s fascinating past.
Transitioning Into Sound: Early Film Comedians, with Marc StraussFilm comedians such as Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Abbott and Costello began their careers on the Vaudeville, Music Hall, and Burlesque stages during the 1910s. With the advent of silent pictures mid-decade and sound in the late 1920s, many of these performers were able to bring their routines to the screen in ways that simultaneously honored their early work as well as successfully adapted to the new art forms. Via footage of excerpts and entire films from the sound era, the course Transitioning into Sound: The Early Film Comedians will provide students with a clear understanding of the historical context and enduring artistry of nearly a dozen film comedians from the late 1920s through the early television age. Background information filled with cultural and social details will precede each film and excerpt showings followed by group discussion. Marc Strauss’ enthusiasm for and knowledge of his subjects provide a nurturing atmosphere for novices and experienced students to engage in and contribute to a fun and dynamic educational class experience.
A Shaw Sampler, with Ed Golden
Three comedies by George Bernard Shaw: Two full-length, “Pygmalion” and “Major Barbara”, and a one-act, “Don Juan in Hell". Widely acclaimed as second only to the works of Shakespeare among English language playwrights, the plays of G.B.S. continue in constant revival on stages around the world. Together let’s relish the splendid wit of this irreverent Irishman as he skewers foibles, hypocrisies, and wrong-headed thinking in language rarely equaled. It’s all there: politics, war, love, marriage, sex, the family, religion, class war and more transformed by this master into some of the most brilliant comedies ever written.
Revising The Bill of Rights with Judith Blau
The 1791 American Bill of Rights (penned by James Madison) along with the 1789 French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen launched the modern era, clarifying the rights and freedoms of individuals. The American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration had much in common. For example, both guaranteed the right to a fair trial and freedom of speech. What they did do was to clarify protections for civil and political rights, but they did not address and guarantee peoples’ security or what we now call, ‘human rights,’ including the right to food, education, and housing. Nor did they spell out the rights of women, indigenous people, racial minorities, elderly,on and revised the French Constitution to include such rights, but not America and the U.S. Bill of Rights. We will!
Politics in Fiction and Film: Rediscovering Vietnam? with Linda B. Miller
Why do superficially similar eras of political dysfunction, with often competing demands for “accountability” and “transparency” evoke comparisons with earlier historical periods? Why do anniversaries of complex events like the Vietnam War spark competing generational memories in fictional and non-fictional accounts? Which literary or film creations and recreations are worth our attention? Does it matter whether personal stories are “reliable” in short stories or novels or documentaries?
Absalom , Absalom! : Faulkner’s Masterpiece , with John Dennis Anderson and Rhoda Flaxman
When William Faulkner finished writing Absalom, Absalom! in 1936, he told a Hollywood colleague it was “the best novel yet written by an American,” and many critics consider it his greatest work. Absalom, Absalom! explores the curse of slavery against the backdrop of the Civil War, but more than that it interrogates the very process of historical narrative and the elusive nature of truth. The novel moves back and forth among versions of the story of Thomas Sutpen's family and the attempts by five narrators to understand it. Faulkner submerges the known facts of their story in a sea of speculation that colors the story with the biases of the narrators. The novel invites the reader to sift through the competing interpretations, like a detective story in which the mysteries at the center are the taboos being protected from exposure. Our class will be conducted as a collaborative conversation about questions about the novel’s historical context, characters, narrative structure, rhetoric, and style. The class should buy the Vintage International edition of the novel.
Studying the artSTRANDers with Grace Hopkins
artStrand was a unique endeavor in Provincetown from 2005- 2016, a gallery owned and managed by the artists themselves rather than by a director or collective choosing the artists and works. They described themselves as: “a cultural cross section of a Provincetown generation. We all have a stake in the town's legacy, its relevance and its future as a pillar and certain haven for the creative jumble we call the Art World.”
During its heyday, artSTRAND served sophisticated art lovers and offered its six male and six female artists unusual aesthetic freedom, longstanding friendships and creative ties. Inheritors of the creative spirit of Long Point Gallery, artSTRAND took on the mission of re-invigorating Provincetown’s artist colony with annual projects and a collective economic philosophy that allowed artists to show what they wanted. A cultural cross-section of a Provincetown generation, artStrand was a catalytic focus for the best American artists have to offer, many of these same figures still working today.