Recap of Winter 2019 Courses
Aspects of the American Revolution, with Jim Sefcik
When most of us first studied the American Revolution, courses focused primarily on battles, politics, and Great White Men, and mainly from the Colonists’ point of view. That is no longer the case. Instead, historians are presenting fresh, sometimes provocative interpretations challenging those of the past. One recent book is entitled WHOSE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WAS IT?: HISTORIANS INTERPRET THE FOUNDING (2011).
I propose to explore some of these topics to both stimulate further interest in the period as well as to provide more recent viewpoints that students of the era are being exposed to today. These will include the Causes of the American Revolution; the Loyalists; Who fought and Why did they?; Why the British lost; and the Results of the War for Independence.
Cape Cod Contraband: Rum Running and the Era of Prohibition, with Don Wilding
The course will consist of five two-hour lectures, with dozens of PowerPoint images to go along with each session.
During the era of Prohibition (1920-1933), rum running was big business on Cape Cod. Farmers and fishermen of the Cape took to the seas, heading offshore to "Rum Row" to bring the criminal yet coveted alcohol to the mainland under cover of darkness, while the possibility of being caught by the Coast Guard was always present. Busy harbors and remote estuaries, many of which are now popular tourist destinations, were all game for bringing the contraband ashore, while local law enforcement officials often turned a blind eye.
Join Cape Cod historian Don Wilding for this comprehensive look at Prohibition, its history, the connection to organized crime, and how "the Noble Experiment" turned into a profitable and potentially dangerous undertaking for many of the Cape's residents.
Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, with Bob Chibka
In 1719, a 59-year-old Englishman with a résumé full of bankruptcies, imprisonments, and pilloryings both literary and literal began writing books we call novels but some of his contemporaries condemned as fake news.
Three years after Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe published one Disney never adapted for children: “The FORTUNES and MISFORTUNES Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was Born in Newgate,* and during a Life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother) Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.” That spoiler of a full title says a lot about the novel’s contradictory aims. Capitalizing on a hunger for salacious “true crime” stories as well as a thirst for high-purposed “spiritual autobiographies,” Defoe paints the respectable façades and criminal undergrounds of late-17th-century society through one woman’s rollercoaster life. Realistic and contrived, harrowing and hilarious, Moll Flanders is a case study in problems of narrative tone and structure, an important text for students of gender and class inequalities, and just a weirdly good read.
We’ll also read “Fantomina, or Love in a Maze,” a near-contemporary shorter story by Eliza Haywood featuring a wildly different female shape-shifter, and a smattering of literary criticism.
Dance History: Five Seminal Choreographers with Marc Strauss
The 2019 Winter Session course for Open University of Wellfleet entitled Dance History: Five Seminal Choreographers will focus on the choreography and major dance companies of the Russian-American George Balanchine (1904 – 1983), Martha Graham (1894 – 1991), Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009), Paul Taylor (1930 – 2018), and Alvin Ailey (1931 – 1989). Taught by Marc Strauss, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theatre and Dance of the Holland College of Arts & Media at Southeast Missouri State University, these five choreographers had created over 1000 dance works over a roughly 60-year period during the 20th and 21st centuries. Their work lives on in their continuing companies after their death as well as their student and dancer companies We will study numerous dances from each choreographer: Balanchine’s neoclassical ballets, Graham’s modern dance ballets, Cunningham’s neoclassical dances of serendipity, Taylor’s alternately lively and dark modern works, and Ailey’s blues and jazz-inflected dances of unity. With historical context provided to all dances presented via DVD, Marc will lead discussion in ways that will allow students to better understand and appreciate the styles, training, concerns, and philosophies of five of the greatest choreographers on the planet.