A Sense of Place – Tucson Session

Local Color and Regionalism in American Literature
Local color or regional literature focuses on a specific geographical location of our country and details the characters, dialect, customs, dress, manners, sometimes even the topography and architecture of the setting. The local color movement started just after the close of the Civil War and morphed into regionalism in the early 20th century. American literary scholars, Amy Kaplan in the Columbia History of the American Novel and Richard Brodhead in Cultures and Letters, both argue that the local color movement aided the reunification of America following the Civil War and contributed to the building of a national identity toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. During the early 20th century, this literary emphasis on a particular area of the country and its characters morphed into the movement we speak of as “regionalism.” Think of Frost’s New England, or Faulkner’s South, or Hemingway’s Upper Michigan, or Cather’s Mid-West or Steinbeck’s California. A sense of place is still today an important aspect of contemporary American literature. Join us for a survey of great American authors who have captured the vastly different sections of our country and the characters who have populated these areas.

Week 1: Discussion of the development of the literary movements of local color (1865-1900) and regionalism (20th century and beyond). We will briefly survey major authors of fiction, poetry and drama who have been influenced by these movements from 1865 to the present: Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sidney Lanier, James Whitcomb Riley, Edgar Lee Masters, Erskine Caldwell, Ole Rolvaag, Willa Cather, Thornton Wilder, Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams to popular contemporary authors such as John Grisham.

Week 2: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930): A New England Nun (1891), a story set in Massachusetts.

Week 3: Ambrose Bierce (1842- 1914): Selected stories set in Tennessee and Louisiana: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1888) and The Moonlit Road (1894).

Week 4: Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) – Selected poetry set in Maine from Children of the Night (1897).

Week 5: Hamlin Garland (1860-1940): Under the Lion’s Paw (1890), a story set in both Wisconsin and South Dakota.

Week 6: Jesse Stuart (1907-1984): The Thread That Runs So True (1949), an autobiography set in Kentucky.

Week 7: Langston Hughes (1902-1967): Cora Unashamed (1933), a story set in Iowa.

Week 8: John Steinbeck (1902-1968): The Chrysanthemums (1938), a story set in California.


Instructor: William A. Fry

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Great Piano Masterpieces of the 18th and 19th Centuries

This new course will concentrate on eight individual compositions for piano by great masters. Each class meeting will be dedicated to one composer. We will discuss style developments, innovative approaches and historical influences as manifested in their works. The pieces chosen for demonstration and performance represent the most historically and artistically valuable contributions by the great composers of the 18th and 19th century. As we listen to their masterpieces, we will also look at their personal life stories, the historical and cultural environment in which they lived, and their relationship to each other. Combining lecture with piano performances by the instructor, this class will expand your understanding of familiar works.

Week 1: Goldberg Variations by Bach

Week 2: Sonata Appassionata by Beethoven

Week 3: Wanderer Fantasy by Schubert

Week 4: Carnaval by Schumann

Week 5: Polonaise-Fantaisie by Chopin

Week 6: Piano Sonata in B minor by Liszt

Week 7: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel by Brahms

Week 8: Piano Concerto in B-flat minor by Tchaikovsky


Instructor: Alexander Tentser

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A Sense of Place – Oro Valley Session

Local Color and Regionalism in American Literature
Local color or regional literature focuses on a specific geographical location of our country and details the characters, dialect, customs, dress, manners, sometimes even the topography and architecture of the setting. The local color movement started just after the close of the Civil War and morphed into regionalism in the early 20th century. American literary scholars, Amy Kaplan in the Columbia History of the American Novel and Richard Brodhead in Cultures and Letters, both argue that the local color movement aided the reunification of America following the Civil War and contributed to the building of a national identity toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. During the early 20th century, this literary emphasis on a particular area of the country and its characters morphed into the movement we speak of as “regionalism.” Think of Frost’s New England, or Faulkner’s South, or Hemingway’s Upper Michigan, or Cather’s Mid-West or Steinbeck’s California. A sense of place is still today an important aspect of contemporary American literature. Join us for a survey of great American authors who have captured the vastly different sections of our country and the characters who have populated these areas.

Week 1: Discussion of the development of the literary movements of local color (1865-1900) and regionalism (20th century and beyond). We will briefly survey major authors of fiction, poetry and drama who have been influenced by these movements from 1865 to the present: Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sidney Lanier, James Whitcomb Riley, Edgar Lee Masters, Erskine Caldwell, Ole Rolvaag, Willa Cather, Thornton Wilder, Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams to popular contemporary authors such as John Grisham.

Week 2: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930): A New England Nun (1891), a story set in Massachusetts.

Week 3: Ambrose Bierce (1842- 1914): Selected stories set in Tennessee and Louisiana: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1888) and The Moonlit Road (1894).

Week 4: Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) – Selected poetry set in Maine from Children of the Night (1897).

Week 5: Hamlin Garland (1860-1940): Under the Lion’s Paw (1890), a story set in both Wisconsin and South Dakota.

Week 6: Jesse Stuart (1907-1984): The Thread That Runs So True (1949), an autobiography set in Kentucky.

Week 7: Langston Hughes (1902-1967): Cora Unashamed (1933), a story set in Iowa.

Week 8: John Steinbeck (1902-1968): The Chrysanthemums (1938), a story set in California.


Instructor: William A. Fry

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Matisse and the Exotic

Henri Matisse is known for both his brilliant use of color and his remarkable draftsmanship. Matisse was one of the artists, along with Pablo Picasso, who helped usher in the revolutionary developments in the visual arts in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Like Picasso, Matisse was interested in the exotic and was influenced by non-European cultures. A little known fact is that Matisse was captivated by the beauty of the art of the Inuit people of the Arctic and created a series of black and white portraits – remarkable because Matisse is known for his brilliant use of color – of the Inuit people. Matisse was captivated by the idea of Yua, which means the spiritual interconnectedness of all living things. We will investigate Matisse and his career in two classroom sessions plus a day trip to the Heard Museum for a guided tour of Yua Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic Spirit – an exclusive exhibit of rarely seen works featuring the surprising connection between Matisse and the indigenous people of the Arctic. This examination of Matisse will demonstrate how his experience with the Inuit inspired and helped him define his ideas about art and influenced the direction of Modern Art.

Day Trip:
When: Monday January 28, 8:00am-4:15pm


Instructor: Kevin Justus

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Speaking Up and Writing Down

Giving Voice to Our Stories!

So many of us enjoy writing, but instead of sharing our work we accumulate boxes of journals, stories, essays, etc. over the years. We replay in our minds insightful moments and experiences, thinking someday we’ll get them written down and even published. If you would like to give voice to your life stories, to liberate them from memory—let them have a life of their own—this is the class for you. We’ll write vignettes and essays utilizing a variety of narrative writing techniques to find the larger narrator within each of our stories: the voice which is able to discern the themes, patterns, and metaphors running through our lives: the voice which is more reliable and fresh than memory: the voice which keeps us evolving.

Whether you’re putting family stories together for yourself or the clan, seeking to publish your memoir or essays, or simply wanting a more vibrant, freer writing style, this class will allow you to explore, be heard, and get feedback in a supportive environment. Come practice getting out of your head, onto the page, and into a larger life!” Returning writers are encouraged to come and continue their projects.


Instructor:

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As Time Goes By… – Session 1

The Forgotten Tunesmiths of The Great American Song Book

Shine On Harvest Moon, My Melancholy Baby, For Me and My Gal, Happy Days Are Here Again – who wrote these songs? As Time Goes By celebrates the forgotten composers and lyricists who created musical memories alongside George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, and Cole Porter.

You may not recognize the names of Gus Kahn, Milton Ager, Carolyn Leigh, Leo Robin, or Walter Donaldson, but you know their songs: I’ll See You in My Dreams, Ain’t She Sweet, Witchcraft, Beyond The Blue Horizon, and Makin’ Whoopee!

Meet the invisible music makers who toiled in Tin Pan Alley and wrote songs which mirrored the American experience and created an emotional song history of our times. Their songs have become part of the soundtrack of our lives.

As Time Goes By toasts the composers and lyricists who wrote songs that sound as fresh today as when they were first written: The Boy Next Door, Tea for Two, Stardust, The Birth of Blues, or The Best Things in Life Are Free.

From the stages of Vaudeville and Broadway to the glory days of the Hollywood Dream Factory, the songwriters of As Time Goes By created a songbook of standards that live on today.

You must remember this,

A kiss is still a kiss,

A sigh is just a sigh.

The fundamental things apply

As Time Goes By.


Instructor: Richard T. Hanson

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As Time Goes By… – Session 2

The Forgotten Tunesmiths of The Great American Song Book

Shine On Harvest Moon, My Melancholy Baby, For Me and My Gal, Happy Days Are Here Again – who wrote these songs? As Time Goes By celebrates the forgotten composers and lyricists who created musical memories alongside George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, and Cole Porter.

You may not recognize the names of Gus Kahn, Milton Ager, Carolyn Leigh, Leo Robin, or Walter Donaldson, but you know their songs: I’ll See You in My Dreams, Ain’t She Sweet, Witchcraft, Beyond The Blue Horizon, and Makin’ Whoopee!

Meet the invisible music makers who toiled in Tin Pan Alley and wrote songs which mirrored the American experience and created an emotional song history of our times. Their songs have become part of the soundtrack of our lives.

As Time Goes By toasts the composers and lyricists who wrote songs that sound as fresh today as when they were first written: The Boy Next Door, Tea for Two, Stardust, The Birth of Blues, or The Best Things in Life Are Free.

From the stages of Vaudeville and Broadway to the glory days of the Hollywood Dream Factory, the songwriters of As Time Goes By created a songbook of standards that live on today.

You must remember this,

A kiss is still a kiss,

A sigh is just a sigh.

The fundamental things apply

As Time Goes By.


Instructor: Richard T. Hanson

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Ovid’s Metamorphoses

A Roman Poet Weaves Greek Mythology

Besides being one of the best ancient anthologies of Greek Mythology, Ovid’s Metamorphoses masterfully presents these tales in a complex poetic framework. With transformation as the main unifying theme, Ovid weaves together tales of world creation, activities of gods and heroes that end with events of his own time. Connecting these diverse tales are recurrent motifs of characters—such as deities Minerva and Apollo; themes—gods’ punishment of human wrongs, improper sexual desires, heroic deeds, more; and storytelling ties among the tales. Ovid masterfully presents his mythological epic with poetic innovation, making it significant in his own time.
Ovid’s imaginative lens enhances these tales with this one Roman’s creative interpretation, which offers modern readers a nuanced, multi-textured appreciation of these ancient tales.
Selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, will be recommended to enhance students’ understanding and appreciation of the topic, but such reading is not required.
We will read selections from the indicated books (poem divisions) that best exemplify the themes and storytelling of the poem.

Week 1: Books 1-2
Creation of the world, human beings

Week 2: Books 3-5
Early human activities, god-human interactions

Week 3: Books 6-8
Heroes; male and female wrongdoers

Week 4: Books 9-10
More heroes; love gone awry

Week 5: Books 11-13
Troy and its aftermath

Week 6: Books 14-15
Aeneas, Rome, Pythagoras, contemporary


Instructor:

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Literary Cocktail Hour with Bill Fry

Word Play: The little-known origins of common phrases and expressions

Join Bill Fry and his guest Neil Deppe for an enlightening exploration of colloquial expressions and figures of speech during cocktail hour at the lovely Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort. We’ll have some fun with the English language and discover where, how and with whom some of our popular sayings originated. Proceeds from this event will support Make Way for Books, an early literacy nonprofit organization whose mission is to give all children the chance to read and succeed.


Instructor: William A. Fry

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