Homer’s Iliad

Homer’s Iliad

We initiate a year of exploring Homer by reading his scintillating epic poem presenting a few days near the Trojan War’s end: The Iliad. While the poem highlights battle and military matters, human complexities also emerge: conflict between military and domestic...
Indians in American History

Indians in American History

This course traces the often-changing experiences American Indians had from just before the War for Independence to the twentieth century. It will focus on how they dealt with the expanding nation and its pioneer citizens. Their tactics varied from contact,...
Frontiers of Astronomy

Frontiers of Astronomy

This survey of astronomy begins here on Earth and heads outward to the ends of the observable universe. We will explore the Sun, the Moon, and the most interesting planets in our stellar neighborhood. Comets, asteroids, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud are the next...
Dante’s Paradiso

Dante’s Paradiso

This class deals with the climax of Dante’s Divine Comedy. While Inferno depicts sin and evil, and Purgatorio portrays redemption, Paradiso illustrates the possibility of transcendence. Not only does a blessed soul understand the transcendent universe, but that person...
How We Feel About Politics, Section II

How We Feel About Politics, Section II

This course steps back from polls and punditry to reflect on broader historical developments. It considers women in politics, divisions between rich and poor, and ethnic minorities becoming the new majority. To deepen our analyses, we will consider writings on...
An Introduction to Reading Henry James

An Introduction to Reading Henry James

In this class we will begin to see for ourselves what James contributed to the art to which he devoted his entire life. The course will include lectures on the history and form of the English and American novel, Henry James’s life and times, selected passages from...
The Music of Mozart II

The Music of Mozart II

This course continues to survey Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s vast musical output from the unique perspective of specialists in the field, all professors at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music. Jay Rosenblatt leads the first session with an overview of...
Happiness, Love, and Hope in Medieval Literature

Happiness, Love, and Hope in Medieval Literature

Medieval literature was not simply doom and gloom. It also had a strong sense of hope, happiness, and love, embodied best perhaps in the Holy Grail and courtly love. As in all other literary eras, we can also find many tragic or religious works. But one of the...
Igor Stravinsky’s Four Russian Ballets: Up Close and Personal

Igor Stravinsky’s Four Russian Ballets: Up Close and Personal

This course explores the background and the groundbreaking stylistic features of Stravinsky’s most famous works: Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and Les Noces. Considered the epitome of early 20th-century composition, these works defined musical syntax for...
Looking Back: The Protestant Reformation after 500 Years

Looking Back: The Protestant Reformation after 500 Years

This course surveys the Reformation. Beginning with Europe at the end of the fifteenth century, we discuss why Martin Luther broke with the late-medieval Roman Catholic Church, and explore traditional and novel theologies and ecclesiastical practices. We touch on...
Negative Symbiosis? Germans and Jews after the Holocaust

Negative Symbiosis? Germans and Jews after the Holocaust

This course explores works from the postwar era by Jewish and German authors–both writings and films–from East and West Germany and Austria. In these works we will see differences among the three successor states to the Nazis, including the ways people...
How We Feel about Politics

How We Feel about Politics

This course steps back from polls and punditry to reflect on broader historical developments. It considers women in politics, divisions between rich and poor, and ethnic minorities becoming the new majority. To deepen our analyses, we will consider writings on...
Russia in Search of a National Idea

Russia in Search of a National Idea

Contemporary Russia continues to search for a post-Soviet national identity: what Russians refer to as their country’s “national idea.” The return to the presidency of Vladimir Putin signifies that the country’s most historically significant leader since Stalin...
Environmental Law at the Crossroads

Environmental Law at the Crossroads

Our global environmental problems need attention from almost all legal disciplines, including constitutional law, property law, natural resources regulation, and international and comparative law. This timely class presents core issues in environmental law – broadly...
The History of German Cinema

The History of German Cinema

Beginning with the German cinema of the 1920s and ending with contemporary films, this course provides a historical overview of influential German movies, major periods, and key filmmakers. In the 1920s German cinema was one of Hollywood’s fiercest competitors, and...
The Operas of Wagner

The Operas of Wagner

In 2013 we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Richard Wagner (1813–1883). Perhaps no other composer so changed the course of music history through the way he reconceived the nature of opera and the way he stretched the boundaries of tonality. Many...
Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!

Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!

Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! will explore the creation of the American musical theater and trace the influence of minstrelsy, vaudeville, burlesque, revue, and operetta in the evolution of this unique American form of lyric theater. From Stephen Foster to Stephen...
Taking Charge of Aging

Taking Charge of Aging

The percentage of the older population in the United States is increasing, and will continue to grow, due to the aging of the Baby Boomers. These individuals will experience a number of transitions and issues that may be associated with the aging process. Examples of...
Forgotten Stars of Vaudeville

Forgotten Stars of Vaudeville

The University of Arizona has one of America’s greatest holdings in the field of vaudeville. Special Collections Guest Curator David Soren presents some of the best stars and specialty acts you’ve never heard of along with fascinating and little-known...
The Turks: Pre-Ottoman, Ottoman, Post-Ottoman

The Turks: Pre-Ottoman, Ottoman, Post-Ottoman

Who are the Turks? Where did they come from, and how did they help build the Islamic world? What role did they play in the Crusades? A major world power for nearly 500 years, how did they rule so much of Europe before finally taking Constantinople in 1453, and with...