Fine Arts, Film & Literature   

Continue viewing the American Film Institute’s choices of the best films ever made. In this class, participants watch each film and, if time allows, have a brief discussion.

Beethoven to the Beatles will develop basic musicianship, enhance artistic expressive awareness, provide historical and cross-cultural contexts, and encourage creative and analytical thinking. Essentially, the class will familiarize participants with the principles of music interpretation, analysis, and historical traditions: Classical, Pop, Jazz, Rock, and Ethnic genres. The ultimate goal is the development of inspired listening aesthetics – forever striving to make musical understanding more profound. Aaron Copland, the Dean of American Composers, said: "To listen intently, to listen consciously, to listen with one's whole intelligence is the least we can do in furtherance of an art that is one of the glories of mankind."

World War I was called “the war to end all wars.” With new-fangled weaponry and trench warfare, it was also unmatched in brutality and carnage. A number of soldier-poets, many of whom were to become casualties, eloquently chronicled this first “modern war." The most prominent was the British poet Wilfred Owen, whose poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" is justly famous for capturing the horrors of the battlefield and eviscerating the jingoism of the day. In this class, we will read and discuss the poems of several British soldier-poets, including those of Owen.

Prepare to have fun with writing. Practice observing, using your imagination, and expanding your use of language. Explore several different types of poetry and prose styles including memoir, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Practice using the senses in your writing, and discover different methods to increase creativity. LIMIT 15

Ethel Ray was a staunch women's rights and civil rights leader during the Harlem Renaissance. She was born, raised, and educated right here in Duluth, Minnesota. The book Ethel Ray: Living in the White, Gray, and Black is an accurate and fantastic account of this American icon as well as an important historical and educational document for all to learn from. This class offers the chance for participants to explore the book together in its entirety and to experience a few surprises along the way.

This winter session we will read and discuss works representative of Western Civilization. We'll read two plays (Shakespeare's Othello and Sophocles' Antigone) and watch filmed versions. We'll read essays by Darwin, Hume, de Toqueville, and sociologist Georg Simmel. No special background is required beyond an interest in reading and discussing. LIMIT 16

The goal of this memoir writing group is that each participant finish (or nearly finish) one piece in the eight weeks together. This will be an active group of mostly writing and workshopping with some reading and examples. Handouts with guidelines and tips will be distributed. LIMIT 18

When Farah Jasmine Griffin was only nine years old, her father gave her a book in which he had written the inscription that became the driving mission of her life and serves as the title of her book: Read Until You Understand. Her father died suddenly not long after. From enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley to today’s heart wrenching sage, Jesmyn Ward, Griffin, who is Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia, leads us on an odyssey of soul searching through searing literature and poignant personal memoir. Griffin lifts up themes of legacy, love, learning; mercy; black freedom and the idea(l) of America; justice; rage and resistance; death; the transformative potential of love; joy; beauty; and gardens of grace. She takes us to the heart of the literature of dozens of writers and artists, including Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Frances Harper, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, and Zora Neale Hurston – all this and more in just over 200 pages that can hardly be put down except to catch your breath.

In this class, participants will read and discuss several narratives from the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament), including the Apocrypha. Prepare to examine these not as history, nor myth, nor religious doctrine, but as what may be best described as "historicized fiction." Each narrative will be considered both as a self-contained story and in its relationship to the others via themes, allusions, style, and various literary techniques.

Since he has won eleven Grammys, a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Prize for Literature, are we in agreement that Bob Dylan is more than an entertainer? Are his songs really poetry? Explore these questions and more during this class.

Comedy is one of the greatest human inventions. For more than twenty-five-hundred years, people have been entertained by comedies, often without realizing that comic form and vision offer an interpretation of life. Although, like Rodney Dangerfield, comedy “don’t get no respect” compared to “serious” theater and cinema, comedy is the more intellectual form. In this class we will explore comedy’s origins and history and its relationship with humor by focusing on two famous comedies, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1904). And we will discuss why one might claim that each qualifies as “the ultimate comedy.”

Participants will learn principles of art and how to use a variety of watercolor techniques. Beginners are welcome, and experienced class members may be inspired. LIMIT 18