Classes

Contemporary Native American Authors

Also see Oro Valley Session

After many years of eloquent Native American oratory and non-fiction, there has been what many literary scholars consider a Native American Literary Renaissance, a flowering of novels, short fiction, poetry, drama, essays, autobiography and other forms of non-fiction. This began in the late 1960’s and continued growing through the 1970’s and to the present.

In an essay for the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature (2004), Arnold E. Sabatelli writes: “N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D., a long-time resident of Tucson and Professor of English at the University of Arizona, captured the essence of Native American literature in an address he gave entitled “The Man Made of Words” in 1970 at Princeton University:

“Storytelling is imaginative and creative in nature. It is an act by which man strives to realize his capacity for wonder, meaning and delight. It is also a process in which man invests and preserves himself in the context of ideas. Man tells stories in order to understand his experience, whatever it may be. The possibilities of storytelling are precisely those of understanding the human experience.”

Week 1: An introductory survey of some major contemporary Native American authors. We will discuss the careers of and sample works by Vine Deloria, Jr., Joy Harjo, Gerald Vizenor, and Linda Hogan.

Week 2: N. Scott Momaday (1934) Kiowa/Cherokee House Made of Dawn (1968 masterpiece novel) and selected poetry from The Angle of Geese (1974) and The Gourd Dancer (1976).

Week 3: Leslie Marmon Silko (1948) Laguna Pueblo “The Yellow Woman” (1974 short story from The Man To Send Rain Clouds) and selected poetry from Laguna Woman (1974) and Storyteller (1981)

Week 4: Louise Erdrich (1954) Chippewa “Lipsha Morrissey” and “The Red Convertible” from Love Medicine (1984) and selected poetry from Jacklight (1984)

Week 5: Luci Tapahanso (1953) Navajo “In 1984” and other selections from The Women Are Singing (1993) Other poetry selections from A Radiant Curve (2008), Simon Ortiz (1941) Acoma Pueblo “Travels in the South” and other selected poetry from Woven Stone (1992)

Week 6: Ofelia Zepeda (1952 – ) Tohono O’odham Selected poetry from Where Clouds Are Formed (2008). Selected prose selections from Ocean Power (1995), Sherman Alexie (1966) Spokane/Coeur d’ Alene, Selected poetry from The Business of Fancydancing (1992), “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” (1993 short fiction).

Contemporary Native American Authors

Also see Tucson Session

After many years of eloquent Native American oratory and non-fiction, there has been what many literary scholars consider a Native American Literary Renaissance, a flowering of novels, short fiction, poetry, drama, essays, autobiography and other forms of non-fiction. This began in the late 1960’s and continued growing through the 1970’s and to the present.

In an essay for the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature (2004), Arnold E. Sabatelli writes: “N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D., a long-time resident of Tucson and Professor of English at the University of Arizona, captured the essence of Native American literature in an address he gave entitled “The Man Made of Words” in 1970 at Princeton University:

“Storytelling is imaginative and creative in nature. It is an act by which man strives to realize his capacity for wonder, meaning and delight. It is also a process in which man invests and preserves himself in the context of ideas. Man tells stories in order to understand his experience, whatever it may be. The possibilities of storytelling are precisely those of understanding the human experience.”

Week 1: An introductory survey of some major contemporary Native American authors. We will discuss the careers of and sample works by Vine Deloria, Jr., Joy Harjo, Gerald Vizenor, and Linda Hogan.

Week 2: N. Scott Momaday (1934) Kiowa/Cherokee House Made of Dawn (1968 masterpiece novel) and selected poetry from The Angle of Geese (1974) and The Gourd Dancer (1976).

Week 3: Leslie Marmon Silko (1948) Laguna Pueblo “The Yellow Woman” (1974 short story from The Man To Send Rain Clouds) and selected poetry from Laguna Woman (1974) and Storyteller (1981)

Week 4: Louise Erdrich (1954) Chippewa “Lipsha Morrissey” and “The Red Convertible” from Love Medicine (1984) and selected poetry from Jacklight (1984)

Week 5: Luci Tapahanso (1953) Navajo “In 1984” and other selections from The Women Are Singing (1993) Other poetry selections from A Radiant Curve (2008), Simon Ortiz (1941) Acoma Pueblo “Travels in the South” and other selected poetry from Woven Stone (1992)

Week 6: Ofelia Zepeda (1952 – ) Tohono O’odham Selected poetry from Where Clouds Are Formed (2008). Selected prose selections from Ocean Power (1995), Sherman Alexie (1966) Spokane/Coeur d’ Alene, Selected poetry from The Business of Fancydancing (1992), “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” (1993 short fiction).

Painters of all levels are invited to come together for instruction, inspiration, and encouragement. Review the basic elements of painting and receive plenty of individual attention in a small and supportive class environment. Work on projects of your choice or those suggested by the instructor. Discuss methods for color mixing, techniques for paint application, and ideas for still life, landscape, and portrait. Bring any art supplies you have. Additional supply needs will be discussed at the first class.

The Great Male Singers

Also see Session 2 & Session 3

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter or Mars . . .

From Rudy Vallée to Frank Sinatra, from Bing Crosby to Tony Bennett, from Cab Calloway to Johnny Mathis, from Louis Armstrong to Nat King Cole, from Fats Domino to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, the great men of song have chronicled a romantic history of our lives. For generations, crooners have given voice to the Great American Songbook. The music and lyrics of the great tunesmiths live in their voices.

Celebrate the great vocalists who stood in front of the bandstand and sang the songs that told us who we were, where we were, and how we felt. A great singer can instantly trigger the soundtrack of our lives and take us into the heart and soul of a song. Hearing Strangers in the Night or Love Me Tender or Moon River or Eleanor Rigby can instantly transport you back to a special place in time when it was just you, the singer and the song.

Fly Me to the Moon will feature a cavalcade of male singing stars from the world of Big Bands, Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Rock who will lift your heart and make your spirits soar.

Cozy up, for it will be standing-room-only for the great men of song!

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore…

The Great Male Singers

Also see Session 1 & Session 3

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter or Mars . . .

From Rudy Vallée to Frank Sinatra, from Bing Crosby to Tony Bennett, from Cab Calloway to Johnny Mathis, from Louis Armstrong to Nat King Cole, from Fats Domino to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, the great men of song have chronicled a romantic history of our lives. For generations, crooners have given voice to the Great American Songbook. The music and lyrics of the great tunesmiths live in their voices.

Celebrate the great vocalists who stood in front of the bandstand and sang the songs that told us who we were, where we were, and how we felt. A great singer can instantly trigger the soundtrack of our lives and take us into the heart and soul of a song. Hearing Strangers in the Night or Love Me Tender or Moon River or Eleanor Rigby can instantly transport you back to a special place in time when it was just you, the singer and the song.

Fly Me to the Moon will feature a cavalcade of male singing stars from the world of Big Bands, Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Rock who will lift your heart and make your spirits soar.

Cozy up, for it will be standing-room-only for the great men of song!

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore…

The Great Male Singers

Also see Session 1 & Session 2

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter or Mars . . .

From Rudy Vallée to Frank Sinatra, from Bing Crosby to Tony Bennett, from Cab Calloway to Johnny Mathis, from Louis Armstrong to Nat King Cole, from Fats Domino to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, the great men of song have chronicled a romantic history of our lives. For generations, crooners have given voice to the Great American Songbook. The music and lyrics of the great tunesmiths live in their voices.

Celebrate the great vocalists who stood in front of the bandstand and sang the songs that told us who we were, where we were, and how we felt. A great singer can instantly trigger the soundtrack of our lives and take us into the heart and soul of a song. Hearing Strangers in the Night or Love Me Tender or Moon River or Eleanor Rigby can instantly transport you back to a special place in time when it was just you, the singer and the song.

Fly Me to the Moon will feature a cavalcade of male singing stars from the world of Big Bands, Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Rock who will lift your heart and make your spirits soar.

Cozy up, for it will be standing-room-only for the great men of song!

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore…

Realists, Impressionists, Monarchs and Republicans—France in the Second Empire and the Third Republic

France during the beginning of the 19th Century could hardly be called stable. Revolution followed revolution, coup followed coup, France could have a king one day and a Republic the next… that is until the advent of the Second Empire and Napoleon III. For twenty years, 1851-1871, France again became the power of the world, seemingly prosperous and at peace. Political, social and artistic fissures were forming that would eventually consume France and the Second Empire and all its artistic traditions. But all hope was not lost with the formation of the French Third Republic at Versailles. It would seem that politics, art and ideas were infused with a new energy, an energy that would so tragically be snuffed out by World War I. Using Proust as a guiding influence, this series of lectures will look at the dramatically changing world in France during the second half of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th through the lens of the Fine Arts.

Week 1: Where do we go from here?
France in 1848—the end of the world or a new beginning—or maybe it is a little bit of both, but whatever the case, Paris is the center of the world. Romanticism, Neo-Classicism or Realism? What do we choose? Delacroix, Gericault, and Courbet.

Week 2: Napoleon again?
Napoleon III, Haussmann and Paris. The completion of the Louvre and the building of the Paris Opera—Garnier and extravagant excess while dancing on the head of a pin. The artistic establishment, the French Academy and the need for something new. Artistic bankruptcy or imaginative richness—but who has what or which? Of course it is Manet, is it not?

Week 3: Manet and a new view of the World
Behind all that glitters is not gold. The painting of Modern Life. Is he a Realist or an Impressionist? “I don’t care, all I want to be is accepted by the artistic establishment.” No such luck. The ups and downs of being an artist in Second Empire France.

Week 4: The ideal of the French Academy or Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the triumph of the Bourgeoisie
Gerome, Meissioner, Flandrin, Winterhalter and Bougereau, the beauty and fatigue of an artistic style. “I know what we will do, we will infuse our works with beautiful women and depict the exotic and ideal world.
That way no one will realize we have exhausted the Academic Tradition and the world is falling apart around us.”

Week 5: The end of the world, again
The fall of Napoleon III and the establishment of the French Third Republic. Pierre de Nolhac, Versailles, and the need for Artistic legitimacy. “We don’t care about that” say the Impressionists, “we just love light, color and pretty things.” Not so fast, there is so much more to the Impressionists than color and light. In the end the Impressionists were commenting on Modern Life and the harsh realities of the World. Pisarro, Caillebotte and the representation of the city and, of course, Monet and Renoir, two horses of a different color going in two distinctive directions.

Week 6: Proustian Paris and the Paris of Memory
The fraying of the Impressionistic World and the move to Post-Impressionism as the World marches towards War. Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Now it really is the end of the World. “We have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

The People of the Southwest

Learn about the geology of the southwest (going back to the actual formation of the landmasses) and consider its effect on the various cultures that settled in this region. Find out how those groups changed and evolved over time, looking specifically at the Hohokam, Mogollon, Mimbres and Anasazi peoples.

Also consider the Hopi, Tohono O’odham, Apache, Navajo and Rio Grande Pueblos and discover the ways their cultures reflected the land and were affected by the land. Our discussion will include the arrival of the European and their reaction and interaction with the land and people they encountered up to Arizona Statehood in 1912.

The Life of the Mind

While mythology and religious texts reveal profound thinking about different aspects of the world, the Ancient Greeks began an intellectual movement that formed the basis of Western philosophy and science. Called the development of rational thought, these early investigators sought to explain the world from observation rather than the imaginative descriptions of mythology. Their research included mathematics, astronomy, theology, language, ethics and more.  While the subject may seem deep, it is not daunting and will be readily accessible to all. Students will receive handouts of the early Greek thinkers to be discussed in class, and are asked to read one fairly short and enjoyable text by Plato, The Symposium.

In Depth

Learn how to use and enjoy your iPhone and iPad in ways you never knew were possible in this participatory workshop. There are countless features and settings that optimize and maximize your user experience. Use voice dictation instead of the keyboard to make writing easier. Have Face Time video and audio calls with both front and rear cameras. Understand how iCloud can share your content across all devices. Create Mail and Messages that deliver your words with added photos and personalized content. All this and plenty more will be explored and explained to jump start the next phase of your iPad and iPhone adventure. You will have the opportunity to get your questions answered. This course is for people who are already familiar with the basic functions of iPhone and iPad devices.

Bring your iPhone or iPad, charging cable and plug, case, plus paper and pen for notes, and earbuds or headphones for personal listening.