Humanities Past

Step back to the late ’60s and early ’70s, when the hills above Los Angeles overflowed with music, friendship, and creativity. Take a nostalgic four-week journey through the songs and stories of Laurel Canyon — featuring the music of Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, Carole King, and more, with performances by some of Tucson’s finest vocalists: Sarah Tolar, Katherine Byrnes, and Mindy Ronstadt.

As Impressionism became the dominant style near the end of the Nineteenth Century, artists and composers began to search for even more modern forms of expression. Join us to examine the cultural, social and political environment in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century and compare the work of Seurat, Gaugin, Cezanne and Van Gogh to the compositions of Debussy, Satie and Ravel.

Join the co-founders of the Rogue Theatre for an exploration of The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s most fanciful and philosophical plays. Consider the language, the characters, the influences, the derivatives, the costumes, the music, famous productions, and the court of King James in four afternoons of laughter, awe and discovery.

From Prohibition to anti-smoking campaigns, to the current efforts to paint the drug problem as a foreign threat, the US war on drugs is an integral part of our nation’s history. Examine the origins of the drug trade and the consequences of US efforts to control it from the 1800s to today, with a focus on the economic, political and social issues connected to America’s longest war – the war on drugs.

Explore the archaeology and history of Japan and Korea from the early paleolithic era up through modern colonial interactions, including the occupation and annexation of Korea by Japan at the end of the Joseon Dynasty. Consider cultural developments in the two countries and enjoy an overview of modern Korea and Japan with an eye towards tourism, travel, and culinary exploration.

From the late 40s to the late 60s, TV variety shows ruled the airways. On any night you could tune into The Ed Sullivan Show, The Texaco Star Theater, Your Show of Shows, The Chevy Show or The Colgate Comedy Hour.

Join Richard Hanson for trip down Television Memory Lane with TV pioneers Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Dinah Shore, Sid Caesar and a host of others. The early days of television come alive with vintage footage of the shows that brought music and laughter into the living rooms of homes across America.

Take your seat in the Century Room, Tucson’s only dedicated jazz club, and enjoy a special performance for The Learning Curve presented by local jazz musicians. Hosted by Khris Dodge, this afternoon session will be the perfect way to continue your journey into jazz and prepare to ring in the New Year in style.

The instability of Rococo Europe after the violent French Revolution and the devastating Napoleonic wars resulted in the exploration of intense and passionate emotion, creating what we call Romanticism. Examine the work of visual artists David, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner and Constable, and the music of Beethoven, Berlioz and Chopin who provided the dramatic underscoring to illuminate this remarkable period.

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of two legends. Miles Davis and John Coltrane, both born in 1926, made indelible marks on American Jazz. Join Tucson Jazz Festival Executive Director Khris Dodge for an in-depth survey of their music, their influence, their innovation and their lasting legacy through an entertaining blend of lecture, video clips and live performance.

Dive into the dramatic world of William Shakespeare by exploring his most iconic heroes and villains. Through close readings, discussions, and performance-based activities, consider what makes a hero heroic, a villain villainous, and how Shakespeare blurs the lines between the two. Ideal for literature lovers, theater enthusiasts, and anyone interested in timeless tales of power, ambition, and human nature.

Caves and rock shelters preserve some of the most spectacular and important archaeological discoveries including spectacular cave paintings and elaborate burial sites. Embark on an exploration of human prehistory and consider how humans have interacted with these deep, dark places for millions of years.

The writings of Edward Abbey stand at the center of the literature of the modern Southwest. Desert Solitaire, his best-known book, influenced dozens of other books about our region. The Brave Cowboy touched off a wave of novels that put the western in the context of the post–World War II West. And The Monkey Wrench Gang, a inspired a political movement. We’ll read and discuss these three books and their place in Southwestern writing today.

Explore the depth and breadth of the incredible career of the legendary Quincy Jones, one of the most accomplished figures in modern music, crossing jazz, R&B, film music, and pop over a seven-decade career.

Explore the archaeology of the Pleistocene and the Holocene epochs, including late Paleoindian bison hunting, the archaic transition, and the development of the complex cultural landscape in North America over the past 12,000 years. Along the way we will take an in-depth look at archaeological methods that help expand our knowledge of these past people and civilizations.

Join award-winning historian Richard Cosgrove, for a detailed examination of WWII, one of the most devastating conflicts in human history. From the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism to the Invasion of Normandy and the famous Battle of the Bulge, we’ll consider the context of events and the continuing influence of WWII.

Looking at a painting by Watteau or Boucher while listening to music by Mozart or Haydn is like the pairing of a fine meal with a vintage wine. This connection will be our focus as we seek to discover why the 18th century represents the zenith of cultural achievement and why this “perfect moment” could not be sustained, disappearing like a cloud of elegant perfume.

Move beyond the well-known works of Tennessee Williams to discover this often overlooked treasure. Clothes for a Summer Hotel, a “ghost play” dealing with the lives of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, was written in 1979–80 by Tennessee Williams. It was Williams’ last play to debut on Broadway during his lifetime.

Take your seat in the Century Room, Tucson’s only dedicated jazz club, and enjoy a special performance for The Learning Curve presented by local jazz musicians. Hosted by Khris Dodge, this afternoon session will be the perfect way to continue your journey into jazz and prepare to ring in the New Year in style.

This six-week exploration of the cultural, social and political environment of the first forty years of the Twentieth Century, will include special attention to Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso, as well as the careers of composers Richard Strauss, Gustave Mahler and Erich Korngold. While looking at and listening to such beautiful cultural achievements, we will also question the role of the arts in the disasters that were to come.

No class Dec 25 or Jan 1.

Dr. Rowe will be using firsthand materials to report on his experiences while living in Ghana and to provide a brief introduction to some of the historic and archaeological sites from Ghana and West Africa in this special session.

Discover new jazz artists who are carrying forward the traditions of Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Tito Puente, Oscar Peterson, and the many legendary musicians from New Orleans. We’ll learn about their artistic development as we also look at (and listen to) the jazz greats who influenced them.

Consider some of the most important battles of British history, whether a victory or defeat. From the battle of Hastings in 1066, the most consequential battle of medieval England, to Waterloo, the final victory over Napoleon in 1815, and the Battle of Britain in 1940, the greatest air victory in British history, examine the context and outcome of significant conflicts that shaped Great Britain.

Using archaeological and anthropological methods, theory, and findings, we’ll explore the development of human culture after the emergence from Africa and entrance to the Americas, as modern humans spread throughout the globe, commit to agriculture, and establish global civilizations.

Join Shakespearean actors Cynthia Meier and Joe McGrath, as they focus on the themes of love, lies and lunacy in selected plays, using dramatic readings, video illustrations and classroom discussions. Examine scenes from Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Othello, Richard III, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Winter’s Tale and learn more about the tangles we humans can weave.

Listen in on the innermost thoughts of Shakespeare’s larger-than-life characters. Read beyond the famous first lines and take a closer look at the passages that continue to inspire us more than four hundred years after they were written.

Please join Dr. Matthew J. Rowe, instructor of the Learning Curve’s Tracking the Footsteps of Humanity, World Archaeology, In Search of the First Americans, and Spelunking Through Prehistory for a 2-hour talk on Ghanaian Culture, History, and Archaeology.

Delve into the stories and sounds of lyric legends such as Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Carole King, Jim Croce, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and more with musician Khris Dodge and friends. Blending lecture and performance, these three sessions will focus on the music that defined a decade.

Khris Dodge, Executive Director of the Tucson Jazz Festival and conductor and Music Director for the Tucson Pops Orchestra.

Taken from the title of a Monet painting, the term was first used for the visual arts, but soon included the musical arts as well. Examine the use of the term Impressionism with a focus on painters, Monet and Renoir along with composers, Debussy and Ravel, all contemporaries of one another. Enjoy both visual and musical masterpieces as you learn about the social and political environment that influenced these cultural giants.

Britain has had a long-standing connection to the Middle East in the modern era. The Ottoman Empire was long supported by Britain in the 19th century and the 1917 Balfour Declaration marked British interest in the politics and oil of the Middle East. The current conflict between Hamas and Israel is just the most recent event that has forced Britain’s choices in foreign policy.

Celebrate the movie musicals that starred the greatest dancers of the 20th Century. We’ll explore the rich history of dance in movie musicals and toast the directors, choreographers, and stars who created dance works of art on film. Put on your dancin’ shoes! It’s lights, camera, action for an all singing, all dancing spectacular!

Take your seat in the Century Room, Tucson’s only dedicated jazz club and enjoy a special performance featuring local jazz musicians. Proceeds benefit the Tucson Jazz Festival.

Following the blockbuster Vermeer Exhibit at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, we’ll examine the details and remarkable beauty of Vermeer’s work and consider the Holland of his time, the factors that made him unique and his remarkable sensitivity to the world of women.

Embark on a musical pilgrimage to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. Explore the rich history of this uniquely American music and listen to the innovative next generation of musicians who will carry our American soundtrack forward.

The industrial revolution marked the beginning of modern Britain, created sustained economic growth, a class system that still defines modern society and established Great Britain as the most powerful nation on earth.

Celebrate the Golden Age of American Musical Comedy, appreciate the scores created by legendary songwriters and view archival footage of performances by Broadway stars that created musical memories for generations of theatre goers.

Listen for the voice of Wales as we examine the work of ten poets spanning centuries and spinning unforgettable images. Examine works by Dylan Thomas, Roald Dahl, R. S. Thomas, Gillian Clarke, Sarah Waters, Owen Sheers and more.

Follow the archaeological evidence from Miocene apes in Africa through the peopling of the Americas as we discuss evolution, early hominids, art and cave paintings, and recent discoveries that are changing our understanding of the development modern humans.

Trace the historical evolution of Ukrainian folk and classical music, examine its Russian and Polish counterparts and learn about the development of a Ukrainian national style.

Examine the life and work of Gertrude Stein who expanded, envisioned and explored language in a way no one else has ever done. She was the center of art in Paris from 1903 – 1938, with a salon that included Picasso, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Alice B Toklas, Ernest Hemingway and more.

Discover and discuss these often-overlooked treasures in a series of lectures that will expand your understanding of and appreciation for the giants of American literature.

Through a mix of live performance and recorded samples, take a journey through time as we experience music, gain different levels of understanding, and realize the “power of now” in Jazz Music.

Explore the influence of the fine arts on the theater and vice versa in the 16th – 19th centuries and consider the cultural context and the exchange of ideas that shaped both disciplines.

Discover and discuss these often-overlooked treasures in a series of lectures that will expand your understanding of and appreciation for the giants of American literature.

Examine the unique voice of contemporary Irish playwrights, including John Millington Synge, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett and Conor McPherson.

Explore human prehistory, archeological methodology and theory through the lens of caves and rock shelters as you learn about some of the world’s most spectacular archeological discoveries.

Explore unknown rooms and easily missed details that hold the key to truly understanding this magnificent palace, its intriguing occupants and its continuing significance.

Discover and discuss these often-overlooked treasures in a series of lectures that will expand your understanding of and appreciation for the giants of American literature.

Sir Francis Drake, Captain James Cook and others set out to explore faraway territories and played an important part in the expansion of the British Empire. Hear their stories and examine their motivations in this armchair journey of discovery.

Television and Rock and Roll – a match made in heaven! We’ll chronicle three decades of American Pop Music from the Rock and Roll of the 1950s to the Rhythm and Blues of Motown of the 1960s to Disco of the 1970s.

Individually made from negatives in the dark room, modern black and white photography established a new art form. Revisit famous images by legendary photographers and discover hidden gems in four lectures plus a visit to the UA Center for Creative Photography.

Immerse yourself in the glorious works of Schubert, Brahms and Debussy in this series combining lectures with performances by the instructor.

Discover and discuss these often-overlooked treasures in a series of lectures that will expand your understanding of and appreciation for the giants of American literature.

Discover and discuss these often-overlooked treasures in a series of lectures that will expand your understanding of and appreciation for the giants of American literature.

Take a closer look at Spanish art from the late 16th Century to the beginning of the 19th Century as you investigate the turbulent rise and fall of Monarchial Spain, the Golden Age of Spanish Baroque and the eventual twilight of Spanish art.

Discover and discuss these often-overlooked treasures in a series of lectures that will expand your understanding of and appreciation for the giants of American literature.

Best known for his novels, Dickens also wrote hundreds of short stories. Read and discuss selected stories from the famous Pickwick papers to his beloved Christmas stories, in this four lecture series.

“Italian Guides” and “The Tomb of Adam” from Innocents Abroad (1869)

Discover the stories of twelve influential women who wore the crown and changed English history. Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the six wives of Henry the 8th, Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, Victoria and Elizabeth II.

Focus on the impact of these three musical giants who revolutionized piano repertoire and performance technique in this combination of lecture and performance.

Black American art is a key element of what defines American art. Examine the 300-year legacy of Black American painting, sculpture and other media in this 4-part lecture series.

In a six-part exploration of music from Bach to the present cellist and playwright Harry Clark will examine the connection between composer, performer and listener.

Embark on a literary and historical journey of American ideals, values, humanity, religion, culture, politics, and war as seen through the literature of our presidents.

Rome and Paris are two of the world’s most beautiful cities, but they were not always that way. Consider how one city ceded artistic influence and political power to the other as we examine how Rome and Paris encouraged different ideas and agendas.

Explore the development of human culture after the emergence from Africa and entrance to the Americas.

Cynthia Meier, Co-Founder of The Rogue Theatre, will talk about Woolf’s life, times, and work, with special emphasis on Mrs. Dalloway, which she is adapting and directing this spring.

Consider the legacy of twelve outstanding prime ministers from Sir Robert Walpole to Margaret Thatcher and examine their accomplishments in historical context.

Examine the tumultuous friendship of Hemingway and Fitzgerald through discussions of their work and the research of literary scholars.

Mozart’s last piano concertos and symphonies profoundly affected the first generation of Romantic composers. Hear piano sonatas and concertos by Mozart as well as piano masterworks by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Chopin in this delightful combination of lecture plus virtuoso piano performance.

Tracing the musical evolution of Ragtime to Jazz to Boogie Woogie to Swing, we’ll be singin’ and swingin’ to the solid stomp of the Great American Song Book of the 1930s and 40s.

The New Deal continues to resonate in American life and politics with the recent discussion surrounding the “Green New Deal” This series of four in-person lectures will focus on what the “real” New Deal intended and achieved and its impact on organized labor, the environment, popular culture and more.

In six on-demand video presentations we will examine the variety, beauty and innovative qualities of the Golden Age as we view and interpret landscapes, portraits, still life and genre scenes, placing them in cultural and historical context.

Explore the tumultuous friendship of Langston Hughes, often called the “Dean of African American Authors” and Zora Neale Hurston, often considered the most sassy, outspoken and independent woman writer of the times.

The Saga of American Musical Theatre

As Broadway comes back to life and the theatres re-open, it’s a perfect time to celebrate America’s great gift to world: Musical Theatre! Explore the history and evolution of this uniquely American form of lyric theatre from its inception to Hamilton and toast the tunesmiths and stars of Broadway.

Perspectives from archaeology and paleoanthropology

Consider some of the major questions related to seven topics in the origins of humanity: evolution, bipedalism, encephalization, the development of tools and technologies, human expansion, art and cave paintings, and learn about recent discoveries in the field.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) has been given many titles by historians, choral scholars, and fans: child prodigy, genius, “touched by the divine” (in the case of the feature film Amadeus). What is typically omitted from such claims is the personal cost of Mozart’s fame, and how this turmoil is displayed in his music. Through a combination of lecture and concert performance, this two session course explores the personal history of Mozart – his early life as a child performer, his complex relationship with his father, his reluctant employment with the Catholic church, and his aspirations as an opera composer – discussing how these interactions colored his compositional style throughout his life.

Our first session is a 90-minute lecture discussing Mozart’s life and his sacred mass output. Focus will be given to his earliest mass setting, Missa brevis in D minor (K65) and his well-known, unfinished Requiem. We will examine how Mozart’s compositional style evolved between these two works, and how the two pieces parallel. In the second session, attendees can view a virtual concert of Mozart’s Missa brevis in D minor, performed by the Tucson Masterworks Chorale. This concert also features a premiere piece, Lux Aeterna, written by Tucson-native Russell Ronnebaum. This performance features strings from the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, and soloists from the metro Tucson and eastern Washington areas.

Session 1: Lecture – available for viewing from Friday April 16 – April 25
Session 2: Virtual Choral Performance by Tucson Masterworks Chorale: Mozart’s Missa brevis in D minor, K65 – Available for viewing from Sunday, April 25 – May 16.

Explore the cultural influences and connections between composers as you focus on the music of the later Romanic period in this combination of lectures and sparkling piano performances by piano virtuoso Alex Tentser. Hear the work of Johannes Brahms, who was mentored by Robert Schumann and heavily influenced by Bach and Beethoven. Learn about the relationship of Edward Grieg and Franz Liszt, as you listen to performances of his piano compositions. Enjoy little known piano works by Peter Illich Tchaikovsky and discover the piano compositions of  Nikolai Medtner, close friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff, a great representative of the Russian late Romantic piano tradition.

One 90-minute presentation will be released each Wednesday to be viewed at your convenience using the link provided.

The art and times of Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan.

Mid-Century New York was the fast-moving center of the Modern Art movement and home to a remarkable community of experimental artists who would revolutionize the way we look at art. 5 women stood out in the predominately male group, for their talent, determination and guts. Follow their stories and learn their important works and legacy in five sessions covering the dozen years that marked the turning point in American Modern Art.

Week 1: Lee Krasner
Week 2: Elaine de Kooning
Week 3: Joan Mitchell
Week 4: Helen Frankenthaler
Week 5: Grace Hartigan

One 90-minute presentation will be released each Monday to be viewed at your convenience using the link provided.

Shakespeare’s plays are full of extraordinary women: Portia, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Juliet, Kate, Ophelia – the list goes on and on. We will explore several of these unique characters by reading scenes from the plays, watching recorded famous performances, and exploring other art inspired by the characters. Each class period will be devoted to at least two characters as we discover what is central to Shakespeare’s women.

One 90-minute presentation will be released each Friday to be viewed at your convenience using the link provided.

Make the most of time at home with a pair of armchair adventures fueled by intriguing non-fiction books selected to both enlighten and entertain. It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction. Join frequent Food for Thought host Paul Fisher for detailed introductions to non-fiction titles you may have missed and come away with a treasure trove of new information and inspiration for your own reading list.

Session 1: The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone
Meet David Fairchild, a young botanist and geologist at the turn of the century, with an insatiable lust to explore, who set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater.  Along the way, he was arrested, fell ill, and bargained with island tribes (some cannibalistic).  His adventures resulted in the most diverse food system ever created.

Session 2: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Join a host of characters as diverse as European and Russian knights, Papal envoys, Chinese navigators, Buddhist monks, devoted Mongol soldiers, Islamic scientists, Persian philosophers and merchants and follow the path of Genghis Khan from the heart of Mongolia, east to China and Japan, through Baghdad, west to Europe, south to India and Turkey, and north to Russia. By the time you’ve completed this expedition you’ll have a new appreciation of his lasting legacy.

One 45-minute presentation will be released each Friday to be viewed at your convenience using the link provided.

Caves and rockshelters preserve some of the most spectacular and important archaeological discoveries and are important archaeological resources worldwide.  Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc (~30,000 years ago) and Lascaux Cave (~17,000 years old) preserve some of the earliest, and perhaps, most spectacular cave paintings ever discovered.  Shanidar Cave provides a window into a 65,000-year-old Neanderthal burial, and  Meadowcroft Rockshelter remains a pivotal archaeological site in the debate about the first Americans.  Join us for a closer look at human prehistory to better understand how humans have interacted with caves and rockshelters for millions of years and consider why we are drawn to these deep, dark, places.

Meetings consist of a one-hour lecture and an optional 15-30 minutes after lecture for questions and discussion. Sessions will be recorded to enable on-demand viewing.

Optional Zoom Orientation: Jan 28, 10:00 – 10:30 am

From darkness into light, or how one little competition changed the world.

At the beginning of the 14th Century in Europe, when Giotto completed The Arena Chapel, the new century was experiencing economic expansion and the renewed pursuit of intellectual and theological knowledge. The advent of Giotto’s new artistic style seemed to foreshadow great things to come. Instead, it was a century marked by fear and desperation. For most of the 14^th century Europe walled itself up in a cocoon of self-defeating cynicism and recrimination. But then something amazing happened.  In 1401 a competition was held in Florence that paved the way for the Renaissance in Italy and Northern Europe. It turned the disastrous 14^th Century on its head and remade the world. Join us for a look at this remarkable period when so many new and newly rediscovered ideas came to the forefront. with artists such as Donatello, Masaccio, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi as well as the next generation including Piero della Francesca, Van Eyck, Ghirlandaio, Van der Goes, Verrocchio and Botticelli. What the artists in the 15-century accomplished allowed for the advent of the High Renaissance and beyond. Revered artists who followed, such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, were truly standing on the shoulders of giants.

Week 1: Giotto and the seeds of the Renaissance; So much hope, until the buzz kill of the Black Death
Week 2:    The Competition of 1401—Ghiberti triumphant, but what does when do when one loses?  The unlikely Trio:  Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio
Week 3:     The Next Generation or Where Do we Go from Here?
Week 4:    Venice and The North–those quirky Venetians and those even more quirky Northerners
Week 5:     Science, poetry and Prose: Let’s all go in different directions and collide in the middle.
Week 6:    The Sistine Chapel:  The clash, no collaboration of the Titans.  Providing the foundation for the High Renaissance.

One 90-minute presentation will be released each Thursday to be viewed at your convenience, using the link provided.

Join Bob Bernhardt for a look at musical expression of love from the classics to the contemporary. Explore the music of love as written for the dance floor, the opera pit, the symphony stage, the cinema, and the gloriously varied world of the Beatles. From Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, to Puccini’s La Boheme, to Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, to Lennon & McCartney’s She Loves You to Max Steiner’sTara from Gone with the Wind, we’ll listen to the music of love in every genre.

Week 1: Love at the Ballet
Week 2: Love at the Opera
Week 3: Love at the Symphony
Week 4: The Beatles in Love
Week 5: Love at the Movies

One 90-minute presentation will be released each Wednesday to be viewed at your convenience using the link provided.

Meet Ra, the god of the sun and first pharaoh of the world, Osiris, the god of the underworld, Anubis who helped Isis create the first mummy and other Egyptian deities as you discover the pantheon of gods and goddesses who composed the rich tapestry of ancient Egyptian religious belief. Learn about the fundamental spiritual and supernatural concepts that linked together nearly four millennia of life along the Nile River.

Session 1: Intro to ancient Egypt and the Afterlife
Session 2: Nature of the Gods and Creation Myths
Session 3: Emergence of Religion and the Sun God
Session 4: Kingship, Osiris and the Sun God
Session 5: Amun and Atten

Since early in America’s poetry, black poets have been active and crucial voices in the literary scene. Yet they have also been, for most of the nation’s history, underappreciated, sometimes even unseen. When Gwendolyn Brooks won the first Pulitzer Prize given to a black poet in 1955, it was a kind of culmination of a movement that included Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance poets, and was at a time when some of these poets found a freeer and more appreciative home outside the USA. Since the late 1960s we have seen a consistent renewal and flow of black poetry, influenced by American culture, Afro-Caribbean themes and rhythms, the history of black people in the Americas, and diasporic histories from Africa. In recent years black poetry has both led and chronicled aspects of our moment, fraught in all its difficulty. Black lives certainly matter, and some of the matter they express has taken place in some of the most brilliant and innovative poetry of our time.

The course will combine presentation of recent poetry by black writers, including readings by the poets, and readings of their work; brief lectures; and time for discussion.  Poets we will witness include major prize winners and underground voices, page explorers and vocal performers, poets ranging in age from 30 to 70. They are Claudia Rankine, Will Alexander, Erica Hunt, Tracie Morris, Tyehimba Jess, and giovanni singleton.

The Giants of Romantic Piano Music

Join pianist Alex Tentser for an exploration of the Golden Age of piano literature through the music of Chopin, Schubert, Schumann, and Liszt. In this series combining lectures with sparkling piano performances by the instructor, you’ll learn about the foundation of modern piano technique, the poetic, philosophical and spiritual influences of the composers, the origins of forms such as Impromptus, Preludes, Nocturnes and Ballades and more.

It’s happy hour with Richard Hanson and you’re invited!

Each week sit back, relax and enjoy a cocktail with the composers of the Great American Songbook: George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Harold Arlen, and Frank Loesser. The way we party may have changed, but the music of the great tunesmiths of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley continue to be our comfort food. “They Can’t Take That Away From Me!” So, get out that cocktail shaker and R.S.V.P to reserve your table at Chez Hanson! In the words of Cole Porter, Broadway, Up with A Twist! will be De-Lovely

Session 1: It’s De-Lovely! Martinis with Cole Porter
Session 2: Blue Skies! Old Fashioneds with Irving Berlin
Session 3: Get Happy! French 75s with Harold Arlen
Session 4: My Funny Valentine! Gimlets w/ Rodgers & Hart
Session 5: Heart & Soul! Daquiris with Frank Loesser
Session 6: ‘S Wonderful! Manhattans with George and Ira Gerswhin

Exploring Paleoindian Archaeology in North America

Discover the archaeology of Paleoindians in North America. Paleoindians are the first people in North America, and they entered the region by at least 14,000 years ago. Review the history of Paleoindian research in North America, to develop a foundation for understanding how the discipline has evolved with new methods and discoveries. Explore archaeological discoveries that address the question of when, where, and how people first migrated to North America. Examine at the different Paleoindian chronologies and cultures found in the archaeological record. Students will become familiar with the debates and current research concerning the first Americans and will develop an understanding of the regional variations that develop in the North American archaeological record between 14,000 to 9,000 years ago.

Optional Zoom Orientation: Oct 1, 10:00-10:30am

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rafael and Titian innovated, explored, and transformed visual imagery, elevated the status of the artist, and created visual works that were equally beautiful and powerful. Yet, behind the images of this perfect world lay a world that was anything but. No matter what upheaval was happening in the world, the High Renaissance artists presented an idyllic and perfect world. In six lectures plus one interactive Zoom discussion, learn more about these four artists in their historical, social, and experiential context and their creation of monumental works of art.

Interactive Zoom discussion: Thursday, Nov 12, 10:00am AZ time

Playlist for a Pandemic

In this time of challenge, we turn to music, our universal language, to find solace, encouragement, inspiration, and hope. Former Tucson Symphony Orchestra Music Director Bob Bernhardt will guide us through music selected to help us navigate these uncharted waters, as we find ourselves drawn together somewhere between physical distance and shared experience. The sessions end with a tribute to the life and music of the late, great film composer, Ennio Morricone.

Session 1: Music of Thankfulness and Gratitude
Session 2: Music of Introspection and Reflection
Session 3: Music of Joy and Triumph
Session 4: Music of Ennio Morricone

William Blake & Percy Shelley

Blake & Shelley are both poets of overflow. In both short and long poems, Blake writes of the beauty and terror of the world and eventually constructs his own mythology (and angelology) as a way of both entering and transcending the world as he knows it. We will read selected short poems of Blake from “The Songs of Innocence and Experience,” move on to “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” and culminate with one of his extended visionary poems, “Jerusalem.” Along the way we will think of Blake as poet, visual artist, political thinker, and prophet. Get ready for a fiery and beautiful ride.

Percy Shelley is the most maligned of the Romantic poets, or at least he was for 20th Century followers of T.S. Eliot and the so-called “new critics” who wanted poems to be perfect “well-wrought urns”. Shelley makes us think of more contemporary poets who simply will not be contained. In poem after poem, Shelley and his language soar into the stratosphere as he seeks to plumb an imagination which has no limits. His thinking is deeply spiritual, but not Christian; his politics are liberationist; his lifestyle was unconventional, to say the least. We will read odes by Shelley, including his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” “Ode to the West Wind,” and “To a Skylark,” his elegy to John Keats, “Adonais,” and one of his plays to gain an understanding of the depth and the expanse of his work.

The course will contain both lecture and discussion, as well as readings of the work.

The Music of Linda Ronstadt

Tucson native Linda Ronstadt is one of the best female vocalists of her era. Her songs are creative interpretations of the music of the great recording artists from the past and of her contemporaries. She shifted seamlessly between musical genres from rock to country to big band with unexpected turns including comic opera on Broadway and a collection of Mariachi ballads dedicated to her father. We will focus on both the original versions that inspired Linda and her own beautiful and masterful productions. In-class performances by singer and guitarist, Holly Jebb, plus a few singalong opportunities will add to the experience. Join John Nemerovski for an informative and entertaining presentation.

The Rise and Fall of a Friendship

Oro Valley Session

F, Scott Fitzgerald, already a popular author in America, first met Ernest Hemingway, a promising young writer, in April, 1925, at the Dingo Bar, rue Delambre in Paris over drinks. Their friendship was a roller-coaster relationship, fraught with differing emotions of fondness, respect, admiration, intimacy but also vanity, ego-gratification, and a powerful spirit of competition which lasted throughout the years up until Fitzgerald’s early death in 1940.

Matthew J. Bruccoli, in his scholarly Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship (1994), states: “The mortality rate of literary friendships is high. Writers tend to be bad risks as friends– probably much for the same reason they are bad matrimonial risks. They expend the best parts of themselves in their work. Moreover, literary ambition has a way of turning into literary competition.”

In Jed Kiley’s Hemingway: A Title Fight in Ten Rounds, he quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald as saying about Hemingway: “He is a great writer. If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t have tried to kill him….I was the champ and when I read his stuff I knew he had something. So I dropped a heavy glass skylight on his head at a drinking party. But you can’t kill the guy. He’s not human.”

In his A Moveable Feast (1964), Hemingway writes about Fitzgerald’s gradual decline: “I saw him rarely when he was sober, but when he was sober he was always pleasant and he still made jokes about himself. But when he was drunk he would usually come to find me and, drunk, he took almost as much pleasure interfering with my work as Zelda did interfering with his. This continued for years but, for years too, I had no more loyal friend than Scott when he was sober.”

Join Dr. Bill Fry for this literary visit with friends Scott and Ernest as viewed from their works as well as from works by major scholars.

The Art and Times of Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan.

Mid-Century New York was the fast-moving center of the Modern Art movement and home to a remarkable community of experimental artists who would revolutionize the way we look at art. Five women stood out in the predominately male group, for their talent, determination and guts. Follow their stories and learn their important works and legacy in a 3- session survey covering the dozen years that marked the turning point in American Modern Art. Guest speakers from the Tucson arts community.

FDR, The new Deal and The World Crisis, 1932-1945

The New Deal continues to resonate in American life and politics. Proposals for a “Green New Deal” elicit howls of protest from opponents who see it as a misguided effort to expand “big government” and the “nanny state.” Proponents describe it as vital to mitigate climate change and economic inequality. Both sides of the argument often mis-remember or misunderstand what the “real” New Deal intended and achieved, at home and abroad during the tumultuous 1930s and 1940s. In four two hour meetings we will examine the collapse of the “old order,” the rise of FDR, the initially limited but eventually expansive economic and social agenda of the New Deal, creation of the New Deal political coalition, the movement’s impact on organized labor, the environment, popular culture, and minorities. We will explore the New Deal’s achievements and failures, and, finally, how U.S. participation in the Second World War shaped, limited, and expanded the New Deal at home and abroad.

Week 1: The Collapse of the Old Order
The interlocking global economic and political fractures that began in 1929 and quickly engulfed the entire world; the failure and inability of the U.S. government and its institutions to understand and respond creatively to the crisis. The “tragedy” of Herbert Hoover and the rise of Franklin Roosevelt and the “forgotten man.”

Week 2: The birth of the New Deal Order, 1932-1936
Creating a New Deal: Reinventing government and forging the structure of the welfare state. The role of Eleanor Roosevelt and her circle of feminist and labor activists. From emergency recovery programs to long-term solutions for agriculture, industry, banking and labor. Political battles, court packing, and compromised victories.

Week 3: The New Deal at High Tide, 1937-1940 Creating a liberal Supreme Court; the Fair Labor Standards Act; a New Deal for the Arts and popular culture; the conservative revolt against reform – creation of the Republican and Southern Democratic anti-New Deal coalition.

Week 4: The New Deal at War, 1940-1945.
The belated U.S. response to global aggression. Taking the U.S. into the world war. Dr. “Win -the-War in the White House, 1941-45. Liberalism abroad and the struggle for post-war justice; the economic bill of rights, the GI Bill, and the foundations of post-war liberalism at home.

The Rise and Fall of a Friendship

Tucson Session

F, Scott Fitzgerald, already a popular author in America, first met Ernest Hemingway, a promising young writer, in April, 1925, at the Dingo Bar, rue Delambre in Paris over drinks. Their friendship was a roller-coaster relationship, fraught with differing emotions of fondness, respect, admiration, intimacy but also vanity, ego-gratification, and a powerful spirit of competition which lasted throughout the years up until Fitzgerald’s early death in 1940.

Matthew J. Bruccoli, in his scholarly Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship (1994), states: “The mortality rate of literary friendships is high. Writers tend to be bad risks as friends– probably much for the same reason they are bad matrimonial risks. They expend the best parts of themselves in their work. Moreover, literary ambition has a way of turning into literary competition.”

In Jed Kiley’s Hemingway: A Title Fight in Ten Rounds, he quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald as saying about Hemingway: “He is a great writer. If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t have tried to kill him….I was the champ and when I read his stuff I knew he had something. So I dropped a heavy glass skylight on his head at a drinking party. But you can’t kill the guy. He’s not human.”

In his A Moveable Feast (1964), Hemingway writes about Fitzgerald’s gradual decline: “I saw him rarely when he was sober, but when he was sober he was always pleasant and he still made jokes about himself. But when he was drunk he would usually come to find me and, drunk, he took almost as much pleasure interfering with my work as Zelda did interfering with his. This continued for years but, for years too, I had no more loyal friend than Scott when he was sober.”

Join Dr. Bill Fry for this literary visit with friends Scott and Ernest as viewed from their works as well as from works by major scholars.

Shakespeare’s plays are full of extraordinary women: Portia, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Juliet, Kate, Ophelia – the list goes on and on. We will explore several of these unique characters by reading scenes from the plays, watching recorded famous performances, exploring other art inspired by the characters, and enjoying visits from Rogue Theatre actresses who have portrayed some of the characters. Each class period will be devoted to at least two characters as we discover what is central to Shakespeare’s women.

The Schorr Collection at the Phoenix Art Museum

Join art historian Kevin Justus for a day trip to view the Schorr Collection at the Phoenix Art Museum. We’ll view the exhibit together, have lunch at Palette, the museum’s innovative farm-to-table restaurant and have time to view other areas of the museum on our own.

Since 1967, the Lewis family has carefully amassed what is now known as the Schorr Collection, named in honor of Hannah’s family, many of whom lost their lives in the Holocaust when Germany invaded her native Poland in 1939. Amassing several hundred paintings with more than half of the collection on long-term loan to institutions in the United Kingdom and abroad, the collection has become a musée imaginaire, or ‘museum without walls.’ The collection is not a chronological timeline of art history but rather highlights several stylistic movements across four hundred years of art in an effort to record and understand the human condition.

The collection began with works by leading French Impressionists. It soon progressed to include what is now the Schorr Collection’s strongest suit: Old Master paintings, with an emphasis on Caravaggism and Neo-Classicism. The other principal strength of the Schorr Collection lies in its grouping of 16th-century Flemish painting.

Magnificent, Miraculous & Mysterious

We’re talking about the mushroom and the mollusk.  Follow the unbelievable history and practices that have evolved in humans, fungi and snails. If your knowledge of mushrooms and mollusks, is from the kitchen and from pest control, you are likely to be shocked and amazed.  For example, a fungi is the largest living organism on the planet and the genetic composition of mushrooms is actually more similar to humans than plants.  Needless to say, some folk consider the mushroom to be magic.  As for the snail, one of them was discovered in the British Museum, adhered to an ancient Egyptian stone artifact.  One day it was gone.  The search was on.   They found it “rushing” for freedom.  It had been dormant for 2000 years.

The contradictory evidence regarding Victorian society as the first truly modern society will make up the primary focus of the course. The diverse issues faced by Great Britain between 1837 and 1901 will constitute the emphasis on how Britain solved (or not) them. These are issues with which the contemporary United States still struggles. We will examine issues that confronted Britain and how America still struggles to agree on policy concerning them. One columnist has suggested that the present administration seems intent on repealing the twentieth century. Whether this is true is a subject for impartial discussion. These issues cover imperial, foreign and domestic policies.

Week 1: Topics to start include: dealing with its international position as the foremost global power, science and evolution, the role of unions, free trade and tariffs, income inequality, maintaining economic competitiveness.

Week 2: Contrasting definitions of liberty, law and order, sexual mores, voting rights, defense spending, tax policies.

Week 3: Education for whom and at what cost?, religious debate, feminism and women’s rights, reproductive rights, poverty and urban decay, jobs, health care.

Week 4: Environmental challenges, historic preservation, local versus central government, refugee policies, trade deficits, social concerns and Poor Law criteria, governing the empire.

The Good Gray Poet at 200!

The bicentennial of Walt Whitman falls only 45 years after the bicentennial of the USA. Whitman has been with us almost as long as the red white and blue flag with stars. It seems time to look at Whitman in terms of what he wrote, what he thought, and how his words have remained with us. The poet of democracy, the poet of belief in westward expansion, the poet who said he contained multitudes, the poet who wept openly at the graves of Civil War soldiers. The poet who rose from the ranks of common Americans to be celebrated in his lifetime, but whose reputation also slipped after his death, revived by modernist poets who saw Whitman as an important precursor to the task of “making it new.” Whitman the free verse proponent whose long lines seem to come out of the Book of Ecclesiastes, Whitman the Romantic elegist who celebrated Abraham Lincoln in a poem of traditional form and meter, Whitman who called for an America that lived up to its initial promise of democracy for all.

In four sessions we will plunge deeply into that song of myself which becomes a song of all selves as we discuss this founding poet of American literature, perhaps the only such poet who allied himself so completely with the American dream.

Week 1: Body and Soul
A Consideration of the young Whitman.
Reading: Biographical Sketch, Starting from Paumanok, Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric

Week 2: Determined, Dared, Done
Whitman’s Poetry Middle to End
Reading: In Paths Untrodden, I Hear it was Charged against Me, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Song of the Exposition, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life, When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, O Captain My Captain, Passage to India, To a Locomotive in Winter

Week 3: He Wrote Prose, Too!
Whitman’s Articulation of Ideas of Freedom, Progress, and Democracy
Reading: Preface to Leaves of Grass, Democratic Vistas, Selections from Specimen Days

Week 4: What We Made of Whitman
Ideas of Whitman from Dickinson, Woolf, Pound, Ginsberg, Creeley, Silliman, Conrad
Readings and Quotations (including from letters, poems, and essays): Pound’s sense of his “pact” with Whitman, Ginsberg’s sense of commonality and otherness with Whitman, Creeley’s spirit of the word, Silliman’s attempt a la Whitman to write everything, and Conrad’s call for a reexamination of Whitman’s ethics. A survey of Whitman’s reputation from dangerous and dark, to good and gray, to, simply, a classic.