Recap of Spring 2019 Courses
Decoding Virginia Woolf, with Jeanne McNett and Rhoda Flaxman
Join us to explore the varied themes and techniques in Woolf’s pioneering novel, Mrs. Dalloway, as well as her extended essays, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas. In the time since she wrote, feminists have debated the women’s issues her writing evokes, critics have studied her innovative stream of consciousness technique, and readers have been inspired by her attention to the social and political issues of her times and their relevance to ours. We will delve into her fiction and essays to contribute our ideas to the ongoing fascination with Woolf, her life, and her writings.
This course will be conducted in the active learning tradition by two instructors, using short lectures, focused discussions, and other activities. There are several edited versions of Mrs. Dalloway available. We will use the Harcourt, Brace & World Harvest and the Cambridge editions. Any edition will be fine, with edited editions having the advantage of criticism and commentary. A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas are available in combined editions. All of these works are now in the public domain, so they can be found on line gratis at several sites, including Feedbooks (.com) and the virtual library (.org). You are encouraged to have access to the text for reference in class.
Community Journalism and Its Discontents, with Ed Miller
Local newspapers, especially small-town weeklies, have traditionally played a central role in community life in the U.S., but the internet and corporate consolidation now pose serious threats to their existence. We will read about and discuss the history, current state, and future of newspapers, including examples of how stories are being reported—or not reported—in our local press. There may be one or more guest speakers.
Modern Photography in New England, with Lewis Shepard
Modern Photography in New England will be a lecture and discussion class examining the work of photographers who worked in the many modes of expression. We will see how abstraction, documents, portraiture, surrealism, the natural world and commercial usage provided a basis for the greatly diverse presentation of many artists.
New England has been a center for the growth of photographic technology, from the use of daguerreotypes, stereo views, strobe lighting, instant cameras and now the digital age. Photography has enjoyed and employed these technical advances with enhanced results.
From Barter to Bitcoin: A Short Economic History of the U.S., with John Cumbler
This course will look at the development of the American economy from the colonial period to the end of the 20th century. It will begin with the collapse of feudalism and the emergence of commercialism and how that ties into the white colonial expansion into North America. It will the provide a short overview of the development of commercial capitalism and then industrial capitalism. Along the way, we’ll try and familiarize ourselves with the basic ideas and concepts of classical economics from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes. The course will end with a discussion of the modern transnational economy, and its penetration into ever deeper layers of everyday life.
On Stage: From Oklahoma! to Osage County with John Anderson
This class will focus on drama set in Oklahoma by tracing the development of a now-obscure play into the beloved 1943 musical Oklahoma! (opening on Broadway in March in a newly imagined revival) as well as exploring the 2008 Pulitzer-Prize-winning comedy-drama August: Osage County (on stage at the Provincetown Theater in May).
In 1930, a gay, part-Cherokee playwright named Lynn Riggs (1899-1954) wrote Green Grow the Lilacs, a folk-play set in pre-statehood “Indian Territory” in 1900. It played on Broadway for two months and was a finalist for the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II followed Riggs’ work closely when they adapted it into a now-classic musical in 1943. Hammerstein acknowledged that “Mr. Riggs’ play is the well-spring of almost all that is good in Oklahoma! The ground-breaking musical integrated music and dance with Riggs’ folk-play in an innovative way that revolutionized the form of musical theatre.
Set in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, August: Osage County is an intense comedy-drama about the Weston family confronting various crises in the wake of the disappearance of the family’s patriarch. Author Tracy Letts (born in 1965), a native Oklahoman, is a long-time member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, where the play premiered in 2007 before opening on Broadway the following year, winning the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The class will have opportunities to see the Provincetown Theater production of August: Osage County, directed by David Drake and the Broadway revival of Oklahoma! at the Circle in the Square Theatre.
Politics in Fiction and Film: Plots, Patterns and Playbooks, with Linda B. Miller
How do novelists and authors of short stories mirror their own times while exercising “poetic license” in order to dramatize individual lives, when citizens must cope with the shifting playbooks of democratic and more authoritarian political leaders? What patterns of response are then reflected in literature? What are the consequences of “unreliable narrators” in the spheres of politics and the arts? How and when, if at all, do national or regional settings and stereotypes matter?
Selected Buildings: An Architect’s Choice, with John Thornley
What makes a building special? Where did the idea come from? What were the forces that shaped it?
Our course will cover a series of successful buildings – works of architecture. Each will be examined from many points of view, including program, structure, aesthetics, technology, and its relationship to other preceding and subsequent structures. We will span time and geography by looking at works ranging from the Cape Cod House to Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Water.” Along the way, we will examine the Duomo (Florence), Durham Cathedral (England), Hagia Sophia (Istanbul), the Pantheon and Saint Ivo (Rome), the Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao), and other works, as time allows.