Classes

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The world is full of trouble. Let us count the ways. Our land is troubled. Many of us suffer troubles and losses in our individual lives. What’s a writer to do with the often-resulting despair, anger, cynicism, confused feelings, numbness, helplessness, grief? Join Meg Files for a 6-session writing workshop designed to give you permission, support and effective tools for mining difficult emotions as you create meaningful pieces that reflect your own heart.

• Face difficult material, without looking away or protecting ourselves
• Write our strongest, deepest stories
• Create, not destroy
• Probe big questions
• Discover the meanings of our experiences
• Examine facts and truths
• Determine angles of approach, face-on or a squint
• Find precise language
• Learn techniques to explore intense material
• Choose the right time to face strong material
• Find the voice for the story, essay, or memoir
• Examine the challenges of writing about social and political and intimate issues
• Use the writing process to discover — and revise
• Deal with family’s, friends’, & opponents’ reactions

This class will include writing exercises and assignments, group and instructor feedback, model examples, and discussion. (It will not include political debate, except in the hallway.)

Nacho Duato is a European contemporary choreographer who has built an enormous reputation in the dance world. His internationally- acclaimed ballet Na Floresta with an exquisite musical score by composer, Hector Villa-Lobos, has been performed exclusively by professional companies in the Hague, Spain, France, Russia, Canada and in the United States by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. This stunning work will anchor Dances from the Heart – a concert presented by the award-winning University of Arizona School of Dance. Learn about this gifted choreographer, discover why his works are so celebrated internationally, and enjoy a sneak preview of his ballet, Na Floresta.

You can see the University of Arizona, School of Dance’s production of Dances from the Heart at the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre. Visit dance.arizona.edu/events/dances-from-the-heart to buy tickets.

Adventures, Fun, and Digital Content

Enjoy both purchased and free high-quality music wherever you go. Have talking maps take you everywhere in the car and on foot. Use voice dictation instead of the keyboard to make writing easier. Use the iPhone’s rear camera to make excellent photos and videos. Set up the front camera for Skype and FaceTime video and audio charts. Learn how iCloud can coordinate your digital content. Learn iMessage app texting and learn how to master the keyboard when texting and typing. We will go in depth about the basics and look into the apps you use every day, and how to optimize your iPhone experience.