by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
“Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life,” quipped George Bernard Shaw. To be sure there is truth in this observation, but it’s hardly the whole story. For millennia, human beings have been fermenting and distilling spirits and putting...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Hemingway is one of the great American writers of the Twentieth Century, famous for his innovative prose style as well as his insights into the human condition. A problem arises in any study of Hemingway because the popular myths surrounding him too often obscure the...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
When Charles Dickens published Bleak House in the early 1850’s, London was the world’s wealthiest and most powerful city. It was also among the most crowded, polluted, and poverty-stricken places on the planet, where rich and poor lived separate but intertwined lives...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Yoga is a ubiquitous presence in the landscape of American fitness culture. For many, it is synonymous with selfcare and holistic healthy living. While yoga is often vaguely connected to Asian traditions, its long history as a philosophical and religious system can be...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Did you know that the Olympic rings logo—designed by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin—includes at least one color from every national flag in the world? Or that three countries—Sweden, Austria, and Japan—have all selected athletes in their 70s to represent them in past...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
How come a retired pediatrician, as far from a geriatrician as you can get, wrote a book on aging? This retired pediatrician became a nonagenarian! What does this book cover? It is a travel guide to the land of Geriatrica where us aging folks live with maps drawn by...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online Many of Shakespeare’s most powerful, intelligent, and subversive characters are female. How were such vividly complex roles constructed in a culture that legally defined women as property, on the grounds of their intellectual and moral...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online Explore the history and significance of Musical Theatre Dance in the American Musical Theatre genre. Musical Theatre Dance has evolved through the years thanks to many significant choreographers. We will examine the work and style of many of...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course explores the people, processes and places that fostered the technological and artistic creativity of potters, sculptors, and temple builders in ancient Greece. Our topics...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses Arid and semiarid environments, commonly known as “deserts,” make up about one-third of the earth’s land surface and are home to more than one billion people. We will...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses The Hangzhou region has long been one of China’s most important cultural hubs and has had a wide-ranging impact on Chinese culture and Buddhism throughout East Asia. It came to...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses Leonard Bernstein embraced a remarkable range of roles in his career, including composer, conductor, pianist, educator, multimedia pioneer, and engaged citizen. This course presents...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online Moderate Democrats blame progressives for their divisions, and Republicans use them to depict Democrats as socialists. We will look beyond these partisan divisions to consider how our times parallel those of the Progressive Era. One has to...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course will cover the history of the oldest field of science, from prehistory and the ancient Greeks to research on the earliest instants of our 14-billion-year-old universe. We...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses Birds do it. Bees do it. Microbes do it, and people do it. Throughout nature organisms cooperate with each other. Humans have always been deeply attracted to the idea of...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses In this course we will dive into classic works of science fiction, from the origins of the genre in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells to the “golden age” masters Clarke,...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
This course analyzes and traces the history of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera from the novel through several adaptations to get at the reasons why–like Frankenstein and Dracula–this Gothic tale has deep symbolic significance for Western...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course surveys twentieth-century architectural and urban theory by focusing on key themes and modalities of design practice that inform its purpose and philosophies. Modern...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses We will study four Jane Austen novels and the reasons for their perennial appeal. Austen combines the patterns of romance—where the principal couple surmounts obstacles separating them...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses The Christian religion is inextricably bound up with contemporary culture in America and around the globe. Yet, even after centuries of scholarly inquiry, numerous questions regarding...
