Current Courses
Current Courses
Open Courses
Main Campus
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In Session
Please Note: The class session originally scheduled for March 19th has been moved to March 12th (during the UA Spring Break) due to a conflict in the Professor's schedule. The dates listed above are correct and there will be NO CLASS on March 19th.
Come explore the history and significance of American musical theater dance. Dance, as an extended expression of language, exemplifies the collaboration between choreographers and writers. Musical theater dance has evolved through the...
In Session
African American literature has engaged consistently with the relationship between being black and being American. W. E. B. DuBois asked if that was even possible. Many writers and artists believed that control of representations of black Americans through art would lead to greater representation in political and social spheres. This course will examine some of the major debates and central texts of African American literature. The central theme of the course is the relationship between race, representation, and identity. We will examine the social construction of 20th-century African...
In Session
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Music from Haydn and Mozart to Beethoven and Brahms forms a canon of works held dear by performers and concert-goers alike. While each of these composers has his own distinct style, structurally their music derives from a set of principles known as common-practice tonality (CPT). This course seeks to familiarize participants with the concepts and terminology central...
In Session
Homer’s sublime epics, Iliad and Odyssey, fire the imagination. We’ll explore how these stories develop from an ancient prequel to modern sequels. Homer’s poetic tradition harkens back to the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh: the part-divine conflicted hero who wrestles with his destiny. Homer’s poems then sparked new masterpieces: Virgil’s Aeneid reweaves Homer’s tales into the story of Rome’s founding. Innovative modern re-visionings abound. We’ll consider three: H.D.’s epic poem Helen in Egypt expands Helen’s ancient myths to explore women’s identity and...
In Session
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How did Buddhism change world civilization? This is a puzzling question for many people interested in philosophy, spirituality, and practice. As a major religious tradition, Buddhism deserves our attention because of its increasingly strong presence in the West and its power to shape our culture. This course is designed to introduce you to Buddhist core beliefs, meditative...
In Session
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Many of us are familiar with and may have even visited the seemingly mystical places in the Four Corners of the U.S. Southwest on the Colorado Plateau, including Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and many more. These were the long-ago homes of people we know as Pueblo, who began farming in the region 4,000 years ago. Their descendants – the Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, and Rio...
In Session
Please Note: This is an evening course.
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Alexander Hamilton wrote that the federal courts “will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them” (Federalist No. 78). However, it seems the United States Supreme Court occupies an increasingly central role in resolving our...
In Session
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This course explores the nuances and key features of the Russian cultural-societal-historical experience often called “the Russian Soul.” Caught between East and West, Asia and Europe, and experiencing its own unique socioeconomic-political developmental experience, Russia continues on its one-of-a-kind historical odyssey that merits our careful attention. This four-week tour...
In Session
Please Note: This course will be held in Oro Valley at the Western National Parks Association (12880 N Vistoso Village Dr).
The relationship between humans and insects can be antagonistic. Only about 6% of people said that they enjoyed having insects in their yards. But they fail to see how these animals often provide useful services, for example, recycling of organic waste, producing valuable things like silk, honey, and natural dyes, and providing invaluable nutrition to the majority of the human population. A...
In Session
The Ring cycle is Wagner's triumphant realization of the ideal he called the “total art work,” combining music and drama with poetry, dance, painting, and even architecture. But it's not just formal spectacle. The plot extends from the beginning of creation to the apocalyptic end of the world and centers on Wotan's effort to secure the reign of the gods forever. Ultimately, he fails, and from this perspective, the Ring is tragic. But the heroic commitment of Wotan's daughter Brunhilde to her beloved Siegfried at the conclusion affirms the possibility of redemption. The...
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This course will survey the fundamentals of ancient Egyptian religion from the Predynastic period (ca. 4000 BC) to the end of the New Kingdom (ca. 1000 BC). Material will be covered both as an overview of how things unfolded over the various periods as well as how religion was practiced at key moments in Egyptian history. This course offers an examination of the intellectual thought and religious life of ancient Egypt, with a particular focus on such major deities as Osiris, Ra, and Amun, as well as the religious centers and myths.