Current Courses
Our goal is to enhance the intellectual, social, and cultural life of adults by providing challenging, diverse, and relevant courses on academic topics. Most of our classes are four to six weeks long and meet once a week for 1-1/2 or 2 hours. Our volunteer instructors are motivated by their desire to share their knowledge and facilitate thoughtful discussions on academic topics.
We have two semesters: Fall and Winter/Spring.
Fall 2023 Courses
We have an exciting list of courses lined up for Fall 2023. Because of its early starting date, one course opens for registration at 10:00 AM on June 5. Other Fall courses will be posted mid-July, and registration for them will open at 10:00 AM on August 7. Once you have decided which courses you want to take, click on the “Register for Courses” button. It will take you to the course registration program.
This fall, DavidsonLearns is excited to offer a fascinating selection of in-person courses in both our traditional format and our new, shorter mini-course format. Before registering for any of these courses, you first must have a DavidsonLearns account and be a current DavidsonLearns member. We encourage you to take care of both of these requirements now in order to avoid a delay when you register. If you need to create an account or become a DavidsonLearns member (or renew your membership), click here.
If you would like to take a course that is full, please add your name to the waitlist, and we will contact you if a seat becomes available. Please do not contact the instructor directly.
In-Person Mini Courses
Status: Closed
Around the Charlotte Region in Six Days
Instructor: Bill McCoy, PhD
The Charlotte region (Mecklenburg and surrounding counties) is one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. Using Dr. McCoy’s personal experience working directly with city, town, and county governments in the region in conjunction with information from the regional archives of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, we’ll explore the history of the region and how it fits into the state’s context. We will include issues stemming from Charlotte’s explosive growth (jobs, housing, crime, education, transportation), from historical patterns in the surrounding counties, and from the way outlying areas connect to Charlotte. Because tourism plays a major role in the region’s economy, we’ll discuss what there is to see and do in the metropolis.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Suggested Readings
The instructor will suggest articles from the UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute’s Website, https://ui.charlotte.edu/articles-research, and provide a short bibliography of books.
Cost
$78
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 20 students
Day
Tuesday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Oct. 3, 10, 17, 24, 31; Nov. 7
In-Person Traditional Courses
Status: Closed
Men’s Health Issues
Instructor: Joe Konen, MD, MSPH
November is Men’s Heath month, aka Movember or ‘no shave November.” The Movember Foundation seeks to change the “face of men’s health” by encouraging men to know more about common health conditions, screening, treatment, and prevention of male-specific cancers, mental health disorders, and suicide. This 2-hour course will touch on their goals, as well as contributing factors to male identity, dysfunction, and andropause (male menopause). Most of our discussion will focus on prostate enlargement (BPH) and prostate cancer, issues that most men will face over their lifetimes. The instructor – a physician, educator, researcher, and patient facilitator – will share his experiences and the latest medical advances. Participants will be encouraged to think and act holistically when confronted with such issues, to be their own best advocate, and to learn what to do when they need help. The course is open to all, regardless of gender.
Required and Suggested Readings
None
Cost
$13
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 40 students
Day
Thursday
Time
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Date
Nov. 9
Status: Closed
Modern Monetary Theory
Instructor: Ted Amato, PhD
What is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)? Should the US be concerned about deficits? This course will offer a critical look at MMT, which contends that countries with sovereign currencies are not constrained by revenues when making spending decisions. MMT adherents argue that federal deficits do not matter. The first two weeks of the course, you will learn the background on the monetary and fiscal policies necessary to understand how MMTs depart from the status quo. The remaining four weeks will build upon Stephanie Kelton’s 2020 NY Times best-selling book, The Deficit Myth. No prior background in economics is required, although the material is of a somewhat technical nature.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required Reading
Kelton, Stephanie. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy. PublicAffairs, 2020.
This book may also be available from other sources.
Cost
$78
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 20 students
Day
Monday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Oct. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30; Nov. 6
Status: Closed
Perspectives on Traditional Music, Part I
Instructor: Bill Lawing, DMA
Students will explore the musical genre of Traditional Music through instructor lectures, discussions with performing artists, and attendance at two Traditional Music concerts at Davidson College. The first class, one week before the first concert, will introduce the genre and provide background on all the artists. The day before each concert there will be a preparatory session in which students will learn more about the artists and their context within the genre. On the day of the concert, the class will meet for 45 minutes with the artists, who will give examples of what to expect in the upcoming performance.
Course Introduction
Thursday, September 14, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Concert 1 Background Lecture: Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, and Ralph Stanley: A Short History of the Beginnings of Bluegrass
Thursday, September 28, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Concert 1: Stillhouse Junkies
Friday, September 29, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM meet-the-artists session and 7:30 PM concert
The Stillhouse Junkies, the 2021 International Bluegrass Music Association’s Momentum Band of the Year, demonstrate the impossible – that hard-driving bluegrass can be accomplished with just three virtuoso musicians. Their combination of fiddle, bass, and guitar/mandolin, and their impeccable three-part vocal harmony, will create a lively concert experience!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdV0mE3WNBQ
Concert 2 Background Lecture: Black Country Musicians in Nashville?
Wednesday, November 8, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Concert 2: Black Opry Revue
November 11, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM meet-the-artist session and 7:30 PM concert
If one could imagine a Grand Ol’ Opry for Black musicians, it would be The Black Opry Revue, a collective of many Black musicians who share a kinship with some form of country music. Our Black Opry Revue will feature three musicians: Julie Williams, a Duke alumna with a degree in public policy who is following her singer/songwriting passion in Nashville; Joe West, who has been heard by countless thousands of travelers to and through the Nashville International Airport; and Mel Washington, currently living in Charleston but formerly from Nashville. All three are deeply gifted artists who will give us many of their original compositions.
Julie Williams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id0hRDXWpYk
Joe West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSpAgeLbraQ
Mel Washington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soG9hXTBIjs
Required Readings
The instructor will provide a listening list on YouTube.
Cost
$39 for the DL course. Individual series performance ticket prices are $22 adults, $17 seniors. Season subscriptions are also available at $75 adults, $57 seniors.
Location
The Pines (Introduction & Background Lectures) and Duke Family Performance Hall (Meet-the-artist & Concerts)
Enrollment
Min 10, Max 50 students
Days
Wed., Thur., Fri.
Times
Variable, see above
Dates
see above
Status: Closed
Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”
Instructor: Scott Denham, PhD
Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel Der Zauberberg / The Magic Mountain is, perhaps, the greatest novel of the 20th century. It has something for everyone: love, nature, time, intrigue, illness, medicine, science, philosophy, war, trauma, food, sex, death, and lots and lots of snow.
In this reading-intensive seminar, we will pay close attention to Mann’s famous ironic narrator and to the role of time and space in structuring the novel. We’ll examine narrative and perspective, characters and characterization. We will learn some of the intellectual social history and context in Europe before the Great War, when the novel takes place, and in the immediate post-WWI years, when Mann was writing. We will learn about turn-of-the-century bourgeois life, decadence, and cultural pessimism; about nationalism and antisemitism; about sexism and misogyny; about Nietzsche, Freud, and German Idealism; about theology, science and empiricism; about war and trauma; and about spirituality and the occult. We will also think about novels of education, der Bildungsroman, and how Mann’s novel fits into that tradition. We will ask if a deeply ironic novel about love and death can be a source for hopeful humanism.
This DavidsonLearns course parallels a Davidson College seminar with advanced German Studies majors. At the end of the semester, the college students will present their research papers in a public forum which we call a literary soirée, with DavidsonLearns students the primary audience members.
Required Readings
Mann, Thomas, The Magic Mountain. Translated by John E. Woods, Penguin Random House, 1996.
This edition only. The instructor urges purchasing from Main Street Books to ensure that everyone is reading the same edition and to support our local independent bookstore.
Required secondary readings (distributed to students at no cost) will be found here: https://zauberberg.scottdenham.net/.
Cost
$104
Location
Enrollment
Min 6, Max 12 students
Day
Monday
Time
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Dates
Aug. 28; Sept. 11, 27; Oct. 9,16, 30; Nov. 13, 27;
Soirée: Dec. 6
Status: Closed
Benito Perez Galdos, The Greatest Spanish Novelist after Cervantes
Instructor: Deborah Fosberg Nelson, MA
Perez Galdos, the 19th century Spanish author, wrote some 80 pieces of fiction, including his acclaimed 30 contemporary novels of the lower and middle classes of Madrid. His masterpiece, Fortunata and Jacinta, is considered the greatest Spanish novel of all times after Don Quijote. By the late 20th century, only 20 of his 80 novels had been translated into English and only four are still in print, which is why chances are good most Americans have never heard of him.
This course will introduce students to Perez Galdos’ literary career and focus on the decade of his finest works. We will dedicate the first three classes to important events of 19th century Spanish history and cover parts of his 1881 novel The Disinherited Lady, with its female protagonist living in her fantasies and dreams. We will spend the last three classes on a careful study of Perez Galdos’ 1892 novel Tristana, which in the words of NPR critic Juan Vidal is about “An Aging Rake, an Ingenue, and a Strapping Young Painter.” Time permitting, we will discuss themes in several of his other novels.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required Reading
Galdos, Benito Perez, translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Tristana. Penguin Random House, 2014.
Suggested Reading
Galdos, Benito Perez, translated by Guy E. Smith. The Disinherited Lady. Exposition Press, 1957.
These books may also be available from other sources.
Cost
$78
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 15 students
Day
Wednesday
Time
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Dates
Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25; Nov. 1, 8
Status: Closed
The Cold War on the Silver Screen, Part II
Instructor: Peter Thorsheim, PhD
The Cold War tore our world apart on many levels: ideological, military, economic, geopolitical, and cultural. It was a time of Churchill's iron curtain speech, McCarthyism, show trials, covert action by the CIA and the KGB, fears of nuclear annihilation, and the rise – and fall – of the Berlin Wall. This course, which is the sequel to the one offered in Fall 2022, explores five other iconic movies that shed light on the anxieties of the Cold War: Mr. Jones; The Day the Earth Stood Still; Good Night, and Good Luck; Dr. Strangelove; and The Lives of Others. Participants will watch these movies at home using a streaming service and discuss them in class.
DavidsonLearns members are welcome to sign up for Part II, whether they took Part I or not.
Required Viewings
The films can be rented, purchased, or streamed from various sources such as iTunes, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube, and for some, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.
Mr. Jones (2019)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The Lives of Others (2006)
Suggested Readings
Recommended readings will include short online articles that can be accessed for free and two books that students can choose to purchase.
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 20 students
Day
Wednesday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Sep. 13, 20, 27; Oct. 4, 11
Status: Closed
Creative Approaches to Land Conservation
Instructor: Dave Cable, MS
The linkage between our sense of place, our health, and our natural landscapes is too important to leave to chance. Our threatened natural lands and trees are vital to our sense of place; land development, once it happens, is effectively irreversible. Conservation protects important natural lands better than land use controls, which are subject to political shifts and uncertainty. This course will explore creative approaches to conservation via case studies in local and regional conservation, watershed protection, urban forestry, and related policies. The course will end with an optional field trip to Redlair Preserve (Gaston County) where participants can experience first-hand the human and natural history, as well as the community value, of this 1,400-acre extraordinary preserve.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Suggested Readings
Participants will receive a suggested reading list in advance of the course.
Cost
$52
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 18 students
Day
Tuesday
Time
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Dates
Oct. 3, 10, 17, 24
Status: Closed
The Colorado River: Its Past, Perilous Present, and Fraught Future
Instructor: Charles Flynn, MA
More than 40 million people in the Desert Southwest depend on the Colorado River for their drinking water and food stuffs – in effect, their very survival. The course will explain:
-
How the once wild river was converted into, essentially, a utility pipe for the Western Sunbelt
-
How the river was overallocated among the Western states in a headlong pursuit of growth, with no appreciation for the environmental damage done
-
How the emerging environmental movement and assertion of tribal water rights changed things
-
How climate change has created a crisis for the river and the inhabitants who rely on it
-
What the future holds for the West.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Suggested Readings
Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Rev. ed., Penguin Random House, 1993.
This book may also be available from other sources.
The instructor will also provide links to recent articles.
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 10, Max 25 students
Day
Friday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Oct. 20, 27; Nov. 3, 10, 17
Status: Closed
The Economics of Immigration
Instructor: Shyam Gouri Suresh, PhD
Why do people migrate? What is the impact of immigration on the residents of the host country? What is the impact of emigration on the residents of the home country? How does migration affect the migrants themselves? Using basic economic theory and data, we will study these questions and look at how migration can affect incomes, growth, and inequality within and across countries.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Suggested Readings
Nowrasteh, Alex and Benjamin Powell. Wretched Refuse? The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
This book may also be available from other sources.
Pritchett, Lant. Let their People Come. Washington, DC, Center for Global Development, 2006.
The instructor will provide a list of additional suggested readings.
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 20 students
Day
Wednesday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Sep. 13, 20, 27; Oct. 4, 11
Status: Closed
Gender, Literacy, and Power: How Southern White Women Learned to Claim the Pen
Instructor: Catherine Kerrison, PhD
Twenty-five years before the American Revolution began, barely a third of White southern women could read; fewer still could write. Yet, by the 1820s, they were starting schools, writing books, and insisting on their right to the life of the mind. What explains such extraordinary changes? This course will address such questions as the following:
-
Why was it so important to limit the education of women in the early modern era?
-
Why did southern literacy rates lag behind New England’s?
-
What difference did the Revolution make to the expansion of female education?
-
How does race help to explain struggles for equity in education – in both the 19th century and today?
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required Readings
PDFs of articles and/or documents [approximately 10-30 pages per class] will be provided.
Suggested Reading
Kerrison, Catherine. Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South. Cornell University Press, 2006.
This book may also be available from other sources.
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 8, Max 20 students
Day
Monday
Time
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Dates
Sep. 18, 25; Oct. 2, 9, 16
Status: Closed
How Can We Live in a Deeply Connected World?
Instructor: Ron Schmidt, PhD
The dominant American cultural view of individualism is being challenged. The environmental movement, contemporary science, the Indigenous worldview, adherents to multiple spiritual traditions, and more are pointing us back to interdependence. In different ways, all these sources claim that there is no such thing as an independent individual person and that all of existence is deeply interconnected. This course will address the bases of this interdependence view and its implications for how we live individually and together.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required Readings
Required and recommended materials will be distributed electronically by the instructor. Possible examples:
Excerpts from Black Elk, The Sacred Pipe ,1953.
Excerpts from James Bridle, Ways of Being, 2022.
Excerpts from Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There, 1949.
Excerpts from Chelsey Luger and Thosh Collins, The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well, 2022.
Excerpts from Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013.
Excerpts from Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Planetary Renewal. 30th Anniversary ed., 2021.
Excerpts from Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree, 2021
Excerpts from The Care Collective (Andreas Chatzidakis, Jamie Hakim, Jo Littler, Catherine Rottenberg, and Lynne Segal), The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence, 2020.
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 10, Max 25 students
Day
Tuesday
Time
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Dates
Oct. 10, 17, 24, 31; Nov. 7
Status: Closed
Memoir Writing Workshop: It’s My Story and I’m Stickin’ To It
Instructor: Colleen Thrailkill, EdD
Ever realize that you have a priceless slice of the past to donate to the future? You do – it’s called the story of your life. In this course, we will tap our memories to chronicle the vivid lessons and life experiences that molded us into who we are. Funny, poignant, heroic, or embarrassing, our lives are a bundle of stories that deserve to be recorded either as a private exercise or a gift to future family generations. This dynamic workshop will release the not-to-be forgotten tales of your life on earth.
Suggested Readings
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. 20th ed., Scribner, 2020.
Westover, Tara. Educated: A Memoir. Random House, 2018.
Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl. Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty, Bantam, 1997.
These books may also be available from other sources.
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 8, Max 10 students
Day
Wednesday
Time
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Dates
Sep. 13, 20, 27; Oct. 4, 11
Status: Closed
Poetry: The Best Words in the Best Order
Instructor: Nora Hutton Shepard, MFA
This class will be a dialogue between students, poems, and materials provided by the instructor to help all participants find, as Samuel Coleridge put it, “the best words and the best order” for their own poems. Whether you’re an experienced poet or a novice, you will learn from reading selected poems, examining the work of each poet, creating your own poems, and engaging in conversation with other students about their work – all activities designed to enhance the development of your own writing through the lens of selected poets and class feedback. Poems will be from the work of W. H. Auden, Robert Frost, W. S. Merwin, John Balaban, Eleanor Wilner, Jamal May, Betty Adcock, Marilyn Nelson, Claudia Emerson, and others.
Required and Suggested Readings
All materials will be provided by the instructor.
Cost
$78
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 15 students
Day
Tuesday
Time
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Dates
Sep. 5, 12, 19, 26; Oct. 10, 17 (Skip Oct. 3)
Status: Closed
Poetry Critique Workshop
Instructor: Nora Hutton Shepard, MFA
A first aid station for poems. Bring your poems to share with fellow poets – a tried and true method to find out what is working in your poems and what may need to be re-examined. Fellow writers are often the best and most careful readers.
Participants must complete The Best Word in the Best Order before registering for this course.
Required and Suggested Readings
All materials will be provided by the instructor.
Cost
$52
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 10 students
Day
Tuesday
Time
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Dates
Oct. 24, 31; Nov. 7, 14
Status: Closed
The Rhetorical Presidency: How Speechmaking Came to Define Presidential Greatness
Instructor: J. Michael Hogan, PhD
This course will focus on the canon of famous and infamous presidential speeches in the era of the rhetorical presidency – the early 20th century to today. We’ll reflect on how the rise of the rhetorical presidency disrupted the founders’ vision of the office, as laid out in Article 2 of the Constitution, and we’ll explore several case studies in powerful presidential rhetoric, from the “bully pulpit” of Theodore Roosevelt to the counter-normative rally speeches of Donald J. Trump. Along the way, we’ll contemplate how some speeches came to be remembered as “great speeches” and how rhetorical eloquence became a measure of presidential greatness.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required and Suggested Readings
Required and suggested readings from Voices of Democracy website, https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/.
Cost
$78
Location
Enrollment
Min 10, Max 15 students
Day
Tuesday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Oct. 10, 17, 24, 31; Nov. 7, 14
Status: Closed
A Shutter Blinks and We Forever Gasp
Instructor: Mark Washburn
Photography was past its infancy by the Civil War, when the field of photojournalism blossomed, documenting through the camera's lens the most consequential and astonishing events of the times. We will look at the greatest news photography of three centuries, the photos that brought the world's events to the living room and many that would revolutionize the world in ways big and small, from Antietam to charming portraiture to the "special operation" in Ukraine. Some images we will view of conflict and disaster contain strong content.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required and Suggested Readings
None
Cost
$52
Location
Enrollment
Min 15, Max 25 students
Day
Thursday
Time
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Dates
Sep. 14, 21, 28; Oct. 5
Status: Closed
They Stole the Secrets of the Cold War
Instructor: Mark Washburn
Meet the 10 greatest spies in the post-World War II era, including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others you may never have heard of: turncoat FBI and CIA agents, Soviet officers (one called the "$2 Billion Spy" whose data on Soviet radar saved the US military in research costs), and two beguiling women whose demure manners gave them entrée to a trove of information priceless to their governments. We will share intrepid tales worthy of James Bond, and – alas, more than once – Inspector Clouseau.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required and Suggested Readings
None
Cost
$65
Location
Enrollment
Min 15, Max 25 students
Day
Thursday
Time
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Dates
Oct. 12, 19, 26; Nov. 2, 9
Status: Closed
Visual Arts and the Mind: The Cognitive Science Behind Famous Works of Art
Instructor: Greta Munger, PhD
What do such disparate works as Namibian cave paintings, pointillist Georges Seurat, impressionist Claude Monet, and modernist Mark Rothko have in common? Color. How we see color brings our experience of these very different styles of art together, and each artist expresses more than color by taking advantage of how we see. Similarly, surrealist Salvador Dalí and Claude Monet both use spatial frequency to direct the viewer’s experience of their art in different ways.
This course will highlight these and other aspects of early visual processing, explaining the cognitive science behind famous works of art. Links to specific works of art (2-4 per session) will be available in advance, so students can study them before each class. As students progress through this course, not only will they discover a different way to look at paintings, they also will learn more about the human visual system.
This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.
Required Readings
There are no required readings, but students should look at the following pieces of art in advance of the class session.
Session 1: Introduction
Indefinite Divisibility. Yves Tanguy.
The Toilet of Venus. Diego Velasquez.
Session 2: Color
A Sunday on la Grande Jatte. Georges Seurat
Ochre and Red on Red. Mark Rothko
Water Lilies. Claude Monet
Session 3: Spatial Frequency
Four Trees. Claude Monet
Disappearing Bust of Voltaire. Salvador Dalí
Look for “Disappearing Bust of Voltaire” under “Paintings” tab
Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci
There’s a short movie opening, and then you can zoom in and out using +/- buttons at lower right
Session 4: Attention
The Oxbow. Thomas Cole
Chinese landscape (no title). Gong Xian
New York, 1911. George Bellows
…And the Home of the Brave. Charles Demuth
Cost
$52
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 18 students
Day
Thursday
Time
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Dates
Sep. 14, 21, 28; Oct. 5
Status: Closed
The End of Globalization: Where Does the World Go from Here?
Instructor: Greg Knudson
Does globalization help world trade by making it cheaper, faster, better, safer? What is the historical context for globalization and world trade, including its benefits and costs? How have the pandemic, geopolitics, demographics, economics, and supply chain issues disrupted and changed globalization? What is the future of globalization – is it the end of the world as we know it or has a new era begun? What are the geopolitics of China vs. the West (and the US)? We will explore these issues through lectures and some group discussion.
Suggested Readings
The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs.
The instructor will bring selected books to class and will e-mail relevant articles for each student to read.
Cost
$78
Location
Enrollment
Min 10, Max 25 students
Day
Thursday
Time
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Dates
Oct. 12, 19, 26; Nov. 2, 9, 16
Status: Closed
Lunch and Learn: Homecoming: Art by Alumni
Instructor: Lia Newman, MA, with artists Sarah Elizabeth Cornejo and Susan McAlister
This event will introduce participants to the exhibitions and programs of the Van Every/Smith Galleries. Visitors will learn briefly about the Galleries before visiting the Exhibition, “Homecoming: Art by Alumni,” featuring the work of nine accomplished alumni artists. Participants will hear specifically from Susan McAlister ’85 and Sarah Elizabeth Cornejo ’16, two artists working in very different media but both with an interest in materials. Susan’s work includes paintings and assemblages; Sarah Elizabeth’s includes stone, bone, and feathers. After spending time in the Galleries, join the exhibiting artists for a casual lunch and conversation.
When you register, you may choose to order a box lunch with either a ham or turkey sandwich for $15, or you may bring your own lunch.
Required and Suggested Readings
None
PLEASE NOTE that the date for this course has changed. Due to a scheduling conflict, we have moved the date of this course to October 19.
Cost
$26
Location
Enrollment
Min 5, Max 25 students
Day
Thursday
Time
10:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Date
Oct. 19
Status: Closed
Contradictions in Behavior: Yours and Everyone Else’s
Instructor: Grace Mitchell, PhD
Looking for a new way to understand the strange and contradictory behavior of others, not to mention your own? This one-day workshop will provide a perspective you may not have considered: the profound influence of an individual’s “approach to life.” Based on data from original research in the fields of adult development and psychology, the instructor and a colleague identified seven distinct “approach to life” personality types and labeled them with easily understood sports metaphors. For example, do you approach life like a “lap swimmer,” becoming expert at what you do as you stay in your lane but are resistant to change lanes? Each personality type exhibits both healthy and unhealthy attributes, and these can lead to contradictory behavior. Course participants will identify their own dominant personality type using the Approach to Life Inventory (ALI) and will learn what research tells us about how that personality type responds to challenges, hopes, fears, and change.
Required and Suggested Readings
None