TOPICS OFFERED FOR SUMMER
2018
Classes start May
1st and end August 31st.
Holiday periods
are adapted to by individual class voting.
1.
(AAF)
BEST
AFRICAN
AMERICAN FICTION
Dealing with all aspects of life,
from the pain of
war to the warmth of family, these tales in Best
African American Fiction 2010 are a tribute to the
imaginations thriving in
today’s black literary community. As the
editor, Gerald Early, says in his preface: “There
is no attempt to present these short stories as writing from
the black world,
if there is such a thing.
It is rather
varieties of literary experience. If
there is a black world, there are worlds within that world,
worlds that include
people who are not black, that include the living and the
dead, the past and
the present. It
might be better to say
that there is a black cosmos of a sort, within which are a
complex set of
worlds that sometimes collide and sometimes converge.” This S/DG will read
and discuss the stories
and experience in some measure that unpredictable but always
spellbinding
dynamic.
Guest editor of the book is noted
author and poet,
Nikki Giovanni. Stories
include
contributions from such known authors as Chimamanda Ngozi
Adiche, Edwidge
Danticat, Colson Whitehead, and Jesmyn Ward as well as many
lesser known
talents. There is
also a mix of styles,
from highly avant-garde next to what is called urban
literature.
As Nikki Giovanni says… “We tell tales to change our hearts and minds, to
educate and
delight. We sit
by the campfire of our
hearts, with our loving and trusty dog at our side, and we
read.”
Common
Reading: Best African
American Fiction 2010, edited by Gerald
Early (December
2009; available in hardback and
paperback)
2.
(BIT)
BITCOIN
MANIA: HOW BITCOIN
AND BLOCKCHAIN ARE CHALLENGING THE
GLOBAL WORLD ORDER
Bitcoin can buy you anything from a
slice of pizza to
a luxury villa. It
might be worth
anything from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. As
mysterious as it is
disruptive, it is at once everywhere and nowhere at all, a
cyber-enigma that
raises the question: What is Bitcoin, and why should anyone
care about it
anyway?
Bitcoin is going for a wild rise,
and it pops up in
the news almost every day. You’ve probably heard that in
December 2017 it rose
40% in 40 hours reaching $16,000, giving it a year-to-date
gain of over 1,500%. This
S/DG will introduce us to Bitcoin,
cryptocurrency and blockchain; and it will examine the
ideological and
technical roots of cryptocurrency as it explores its economic
and political
impact.
Possible presentation topics include
the following:
meanings of the terms Bitcoin, digital currency,
cryptocurrency and blockchain;
origin and evolution of Bitcoin; comparison of Bitcoin to
other types of
currency; criminals and Bitcoin; Bitcoin in the mainstream;
investment in
Bitcoin; Federal Reserve and Bitcoin.
Common Reading:
Digital
Gold, Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and
Millionaires Trying to
Reinvent Money,
by Nathaniel Popper
(May 2016)
3.
(BMU) A LOVE
AFFAIR WITH BROADWAY
MUSICALS
For almost a century,
Americans have been
losing their hearts and minds in an insatiable love affair
with American
musicals.
In this course, we will
be reading Jack
Viertel's book of how Broadway shows are built and include
snippets of actual
Broadway musicals to either view parts of DVDs or listen to a
variety of
memorable music from showstoppers. There will be
presentations from class
members of the chapters and a chance to share their favorite
Broadway shows.
This gives us an opportunity to see what it takes to
create a Broadway
hit and to affirm why Americans will always keep coming back
for more.
Common
Reading: The Secret Life of the
American Musical -
How Broadway Shows are Built, by Jack Viertel, (2016)
4. (BRN) BRAIN RULES FOR
SUCCESSFUL AGING
5. (CHN) CHINA AWAKES
AND SHAKES
THE
WORLD
“China,” Napoleon
once remarked, “is
a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will
shake the world.”
In 2014, President Xi Jinping triumphantly declared that the
lion had awoken.
Under Xi, China is pursuing an increasingly ambitious foreign
policy with the
aim of restoring its historical status as the dominant power
in Asia. From the
Mekong Basin to the Central Asian steppe, the country is
wooing its neighbors
with promises of new roads, railways, dams, and power
grids. Chinese
trade and investment present huge opportunities for China’s
neighbors, but it
also threatens them with exploitation.
This S/DG will
focus on how China is
attempting to restore its historical position as the dominant
power in
Asia. We will learn about the power of Xi Jinping and
his plans to grow
his country economically and politically.
Possible
presentation topics: Xi
Jinping, Cleaning up Beijing, Territorial
Ambitions, China and North Korea, the Silk Road, Growth in
China’s Economy, China
in World Trade, Control of A. China Sea, Human Rights Issues,
Population
Surveillance.
6.
(COD)
SMASHING CODES FOR
FORTY YEARS
Every world
war has many well-known personalities whose activities are
chronicled for all
to know and understand. Yet,
in every
war, there are individuals working diligently behind the
scenes who provide
major efforts in the battle to achieve victory. This S/DG will
look at the life of Elizebeth
Smith who played an integral role in our nation’s history for
forty years
beginning in 1916 where she applied her skills to the
government’s new venture
of code-breaking.
Within
this secret government area, she would meet her husband, a
groundbreaking
cryptologist, and use her talents during both of the world
wars as well as to
help catch gangsters/smugglers during Prohibition and to
identify Nazi spies
during the war and later in South America.
Looking at America’s code-breaking history through the
prism of Smith’s
life, discussions and presentations can focus on the
unforgettable events
during that time in history and the many colorful
personalities that helped
shape our modern intelligence organizations.
Common Reading:
The Woman Who
Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the
Unlikely Heroine Who
Outwitted America's Enemies by Jason Fagone (September
2017)
7. (ELE) SIMPLY ELECTRIFYING:
THE TECHNOLOGY THAT
CHANGED THE WORLD
Imagine your life without the
Internet. Without
phones. Without television. Without sprawling cities. Without
the freedom to
continue working and playing after the sun goes down. Electricity plays a
fundamental role not only
in our everyday lives but also in history’s most pivotal
events, from global
climate change and the push for wind- and solar-generated
electricity to
Japan’s nuclear accident at Fukushima and Iran’s pursuit of
nuclear weapons.
Our common reading brings to life
the 250-year
history of electricity through the stories of the men and
women who used it to
transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael
Faraday, Samuel
F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein,
Rachel Carson, Elon
Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time
the complete,
thrilling, and often-dangerous story of electricity’s historic
discovery,
development, and worldwide application, including the full
range of factors
that shaped the electricity business over time—science,
technology, law,
politics, government regulation, economics, business strategy,
and
culture—before looking forward toward the exhilarating
prospects for
electricity generation and use that will shape our future.
There are many possible areas for
presentation, including
past inventions and inventors as well as a look to the future,
including
battery technology, electric cars, renewable sources of
energy, and more
Common
Reading:
Simply
Electrifying: The
Technology That
Changed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk, by Craig R. Roach(July 25,
2017)
8. (HMO) HOMO
DEUS: A BRIEF
HISTORY OF TOMORROW
First,
Yuval Harari wrote Sapiens,
a New York Times
bestseller. This is
about the next stage of evolution, Homo
Deus, man as god, and what’s on deck now that famine,
plagues, and war have
largely been eliminated as threats.
Already,
for the first time ever, more people die from eating too much
than from eating
too little; more people die from old age than from infectious
diseases; and
more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers,
terrorists and
criminals put together. The average American is a thousand
times more likely to
die from binging on TV and snacks than from being blown up by
Al Qaeda.
Novels
about a supercomputer taking over, such as the Colossus
trilogy by D. F.
Jones, usually assume that once it was designed, that would be
it, no more
changes. The TV series “Person of Interest”, and the movie
“Her” cast a wider
net, with the operating system itself evolving.
This book
shows the possibilities of man and machine co-evolving.
Possible
presentations:
·
How can
technology solve the problems it is currently causing (because
technology won’t
stop)?
·
In what
insidious ways are artificial intelligences already
manipulating us?
·
Can the
supercomputer Watson stop fooling around with “Jeopardy” and
the Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center and find directions we might try, to
solve problems too
complex for us to even fully understand?
·
Are we done yet
with asking God and government to solve our problems? Will
capitalism become
even more short-lived than either one?
Common
Reading:
Homo
Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Harari (February 2017)
9. (IRN) UNDERSTANDING IRAN
Iran is a land of contradictions. It is an Islamic
republic, but one in which
only 1.4 percent of the population attend Friday prayers. It
restricts women in
their dress codes, but 60 percent of students in university
are women. The
religious culture is dogmatic, yet its poetry dwells on wine,
beauty and
sex. It is one of
the oldest continuous
civilizations in the world, yet has undergone immense changes
since the 1979
revolution. Understanding it and particularly the struggles
within Islam and
the profound cultural differences between Persians and Arabs
will be of great
help in getting a better grasp on much of the geopolitical,
religious, economic
and cultural controversies that surround the Middle East
today. Presentation
topics could include Iran’s
economic system, recent history, ancient Persian history,
Shiite Islamic law,
current political system, Persian art and literature, women’s
rights, human
rights, technology, nuclear power, oil supplies and policies,
and biographies
of Khomenei, Khamenei, Khatami, or Ahmadinejad.
Common Reading: A History of
Iran: Empire of the Mind, by Michael
Axworthy (May 24, 2016)
10. (KIS)
HENRY KISSINGER:
THE THEORY AND
PRACTICE OF
FOREIGN POLICY
IN OUR TIME
Henry
Kissinger is one of the few political scientists who have had
the opportunity
to put theories into practice. He
had a
distinguished academic career, including authorship of
important books on
international relations, followed by a career in government
and then by a
career in the private sector advising businesses about foreign
affairs. He has
also written a great deal about his
government years and about his views of foreign policy. By reading books by
him and about him, we can
get perspective on all of the American foreign policy
decisions from the Cold
War through the present.
Kissinger is no shrinking violet. While in government,
he voiced and acted on
his views, engaged in serious infighting with other
administration officials
and was a genuine self-promoter.
As a
result, Kissinger has remained controversial, praised by some
and excoriated by
others, and we would expect to see both views expressed in our
discussions.
Examples such as these issues raised
by Kissinger’s
theories and policies should make for lively discussions: Is military power
all that matters? Should
human rights be a factor in foreign
policy? How
seriously should we take our
treaty commitments? How
much support
should we give to dictators who support our policies? When should, and when
shouldn’t, we negotiate
with our enemies? Should
overall
principles or day-to-day tactical decisions dictate our
policies? What
are the limits of personal diplomacy?
Common
Reading: World Order, by Henry Kissinger (Reprint Edition September 2014)
11. (LDV) LEONARDO DA
VINCI - RENAISSANCE
GENIUS
Leonardo is known as THE
Renaissance man,
embodying the creativity of the “many-sided people” of the
Renaissance”. In
this new best seller by Walter Isaacson,
the author of biographies of Einstein and Steve Jobs, we find
much never before
published. Isaacson
uses his subject’s
contradictions to give him humanity and depth. A dandy, known
for his bright
pink clothing, Leonardo lived at times in rooms full of
dissected bodies. A
vegetarian who bought birds so that he could set them free, he
designed killing
machines. A connoisseur of grotesques, he painted glorious,
glowing angels. As
Isaacson follows Leonardo from one locale and occupation to
another, his energy
never fails and his curiosity never dims. Again and again he
turns up a
surprising and revelatory detail — the averted eyes that
suggest Leonardo used
mirrors to create a marvelous late self-portrait, human
vertebrae drawn with
precision and delicacy. Presentations
could
focus on his painting, medical discoveries, engineering
concepts or even
his theories on manned flight.
Due to
the book’s length the class may choose to cover only selected
portions.
Common Reading:
Leonardo da Vinci,
by Walter
Isaacson (October 17, 2017)
12.
(MOR)
BEING
MORTAL -
AGING, PREPARING FOR
THE PROCESS AND UNDERSTANDING IT
From the book:
“It began with a tingle in the surgeon’s fingers and a
pain in his neck.
A couple of years later, he learned he had a tumor inside his
spinal cord. That
was when the difficult choices began. Should he have it
removed right away in a
risky operation, as his doctor recommended? Or should he take
time to consider
this question: At what point would the expanding tumor cause
debility bad
enough to justify the risk of greater debility or even death
in trying to fight
it?” (New York Times,
Sheri Fink,
Nov. 6, 2014)
The surgeon in the story is the
father of Atul
Gawande, who is also a surgeon as well as a writer for The New Yorker. His new book, Being
Mortal, is a personal meditation on how we can better
live with age-related
frailty, serious illness and approaching death.
It is also a call for a change in
the philosophy of
health care.
Since the book was published, and
since it was
offered as an Omnilore book club selection and then as an
S/DG, a lot has
happened with healthcare, right to die legislation and other
medical issues.
Presentations could cover anything
from dying with
dignity, to hospice, to nursing care facilities and their
alternatives, to
geriatrics, to personal experiences.
Dr. Gawande continues to write
articles for The New
Yorker, which could provide
additional ideas for presentations.
Common
Reading: Being
Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
(September 2017)
13. (NYC)
NEW
YORK
CITY: THE CITY
OF DREAMS
Be prepared for a roller coaster
ride. This is a
sweeping history of New York from the early colonial period,
and its
relationship to surrounding states and the emerging nation.
The story of the
birth of New York City is the story of our national struggle
to integrate
groups of immigrants from all over the world as they became
‘Americans’ and we
became a nation of laws and individual freedoms. We will read
the stories of families who
left everything they had elsewhere,
to come and participate in the development of this country.
This suggested common reading is
rich in detail and
is based on astonishing historical research. Through this
reading and related
presentations, we will gain an understanding of the depth of
our struggle as a
people, not only as people of New York, but as people of our
nation.
Presentations can explore the
struggles and
contributions of any of the immigrant groups over New York’s
400-year history.
Common
Reading: City of Dreams: The
400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New
York by Tyler
Anbinder (October
10, 2017)
14.
(PHY) THE GREAT
PHYSICISTS FROM GALILEO
TO EINSTEIN
Widely recognized
as one of the 20th
century's foremost physicists, George Gamow was also an
unusually capable
popularizer of science. His talents are vividly revealed in
this exciting and
penetrating explanation of how the central laws of physical
science evolved —
from Pythagoras' discovery of frequency ratios in the 6th
century B.C. to
today's research on elementary particles. Unlike many books on physics which focus entirely on
fact and theory
with little or no historic detail, this volume incorporates
fascinating
personal and biographical data about the great physicists of
past and present.
Thus Dr. Gamow discusses on an equal basis the trial of
Galileo and his
discovery of the basic laws of mechanics and offers personal
recollections of
Niels Bohr along with a detailed discussion of Bohr's atomic
model. You'll also
find revealing glimpses of Newton, Huygens, Heisenberg, Pauli,
Einstein, and
many other immortals of science. The aim of this book is
to give the
reader the feeling of what physics is, and what kind of people
physicists are.
This delightfully informal approach, combined with the book's
clear,
easy-to-follow explanations, will especially appeal to young
readers but will
stimulate and entertain science enthusiasts of all ages.
Topics for presentation can expand
on any of the
discoveries discussed in the core text, scientists
biographies, or present
other areas of physics.
Common
Reading:
The Great Physicists from Galileo to Einstein
(Biography of Physics), by
George Gamow
(October 1988)
15. (PRS)
THE AMERICAN
PRESIDENCY: ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION
“Can
the President do that?”
“Of
course he can. He’s the most powerful man in the world.”
Both these viewpoints reflect the
opinions of many
Americans. The office of the U.S. Presidency is complex and
cloaked in American
mythology and often not well understood by the American
people.
Charles O. Jones, in his book The American Presidency: A Very Short Introduction,
strives to
acquaint the reader with the problems facing the founding
fathers as they
attempted to replace a weak confederation of states with a
more effective form
of government.
A leader was needed, but how to make
certain that
that leader did not become a tyrant like the king they had
just renounced? The
title for the office was important.
“President” from praesidere--“to preside”--was chosen because
it was more
neutral, less commanding than other governing titles. The
President would
govern within a constitutional construction that divided up
power among the
legislative, judicial and executive branches. Jones offers the
thought that the
phrase - separating to
unify -
provides “a basis for understanding American government and
politics.”
Having established the basis for the
office, Jones
goes on to elaborate on the powers and limitations of the
office and discusses
the evolution of powers using examples of various Presidents.
This class will study the foundation
of the office,
the Constitutional basis and the evolution of the powers of
the office.
Discussions and presentations may be based upon the philosophy
of the founding
fathers, historical instances enhancing the powers, the
present understanding
of the office (which is open to wide speculation), the world
leadership role,
etc.
Common
Reading: The
American Presidency: A
Very Short Introduction, 2nd
Edition by Charles O. Jones
(July 1,
2016)
16. (ROM) THE
ROMANOVS
The Romanovs were the most
successful dynasty of
modern times, ruling a sixth of the world’s surface for three
centuries. They
turned a war-ruined principality into the world’s greatest
empire and then lost
it all. Their
story is of twenty tsars
and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness--but all
inspired by holy
autocracy and imperial ambition. Ruling Russia was a sacred
imperial mission
filled with danger, as six of the last twelve tsars were
murdered.
This S/DG will review the Romanovs’
secret world of
unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by
palace
conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild
extravagance, with a
global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and
poets, from Ivan
the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin, to Bismarck, Lincoln,
Queen Victoria and
Lenin. Any one of
these participants in
this imperial environment would make for a good presentation
topic. Other
topics could be the evidence of the
life-style left behind as seen today in the palaces of
Catherine and Peter the
Great; life outside of the elite circle; events globally that
impacted Russia;
and how the excesses contributed to the dramatic change
post-Romanovs.
Common
Reading: The
Romanovs:
1613-1918, by
Simon Sebag Montefiore (May 2016)
17.
(RTE) READERS'
THEATRE EXPERIENCE
In amateur circles throughout the
country,
opportunities to participate in Readers' Theatre have become
extremely
popular. This class will focus on contemporary American
plays.
Highlighted will be the plays of August Wilson, Pulitzer Prize
winner for
Drama. Each work is set in a different decade and depicts
comic and tragic
aspects of the African-American experience in the 20th
century: The
Piano Lesson - 1930s, Seven Guitars - 1940s,
Fences -
1950s, Jitney - 1970s, Radio Golf - 1990s, just
to mention a few.
The class will read the plays at home utilizing libraries and
Internet
sources. The presenter of the selection will generate
questions regarding
the elements of good script writing (plot, character analysis,
conflicts,
resolutions, etc.) as this applies to the plays
reviewed. After a class
discussion based on these questions, snippets of the actual
dialogue will be
read extemporaneously by class members. As a group, we
will strive for an
enjoyable Readers' Theatre experience. Here's your
opportunity to be a
star on our own "Broadway Stage".
Common Reading.
A. Wilson in an Hour, by Joan
Herrington (2009)
18. (SCI)
A
BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO
SCIENCE: A SHORT
HISTORY OF
NEARLY EVERYTHING
This S/DG
offers an
overview of key science topics, the history of discovery, and
the philosophical
questions modern science raises.
The core book in this S/DG, Bill
Bryson’s A Short
History of Nearly Everything was on the best-seller
list for six months. It
is written for the general reader, providing an accessible
description of
“nearly everything” in science, from the Big Bang to genetics.
The hi-story
discusses the sometimes-amazing way discoveries were made, how
they were often
controversial even when right, and the strange personalities
and behavior of
many of the discoverers. Bryson’s entertaining book was
published in 2003, so
each session can be supplemented with brief articles from the
Web when
necessary to bring the science up to date.
Discussion will be driven in part by
the incredible
things that had to happen for there to be humans even capable
of discovering
what drives our universe and makes us possible. We will
discuss questions
raised by the reading, how it helps us understand our current
world and its
challenges, and the philosophical implications of what we know
about our world.
Come join us in this fascinating
exploration of our
world and universe and be filled with wonder at our universe
and all the things
we know and don’t know about it!
Common
Reading:
A Short History
of Nearly
Everything, by Bill Bryson (2003)
19. (TDT)
TERRORISM
AND DOMESTIC TERRORISM
We live in an era dominated by
terrorism but struggle
to understand its meaning and the real nature of the threat. Our understanding of
terrorism is rooted in
an emotional reaction and moral revulsion. Terrorism is a
strategy that makes
use of certain tactics or a means to an end. By examining the
common traits
associated with terrorism, one will see how much continuity
exists between the
ancient and modern worlds.
In this S/DG, we will attempt to
make sense of the
history of terrorism by examining it within its broad
political, religious and
social contexts and tracing its development from the ancient
world to the 21st
century. We will
look at how the
definition of the word has changed, how the tactics and
strategies of terrorism
have evolved, and how those who have used it adapted to
revolutions in
technology, communications and political ideologies. We will look at the
history of terrorism
which includes the major actors and organizations presented
alongside the
salient details of the political, social, cultural, religious,
and economic
environments that gave their acts meaning--in other words, the
history of
terrorism and the history of the societies that spawned it.
Consider the following
subjects for
presentations:
jihadist violence,
state terror, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Northern
Ireland,
anarcho-terrorism, the Ku Klux Klan, plus lesser known
movements in Uruguay and
Algeria, as well as the pre-modern uses of terror in ancient
Rome, medieval
Europe, and the French Revolution, Jewish history, “radical”
religious beliefs,
social responsibility, genocide, rise of neo-Nazis and white
supremacists and
why they are on the rise; holocausts in history; Radical Islam
and
understanding why it exists, Osama bin Laden and the founding
of al-Qaeda; the
rise of Nazi Germany.
Possible Common Reading:
Terrorism: A History (Themes in
History), by
Randall D. Law (September 2016, 2nd
Edition)
Inside Terrorism, by Bruce Hoffman (September 2017)
20. (USG) ULYSSES S.
GRANT
“Chernow is clearly out to find
undiscovered nobility
in his story, and he succeeds; he also finds uncannily
prescient tragedy. There
are ways in which Grant’s times eerily resemble our own.
It’s jolting to read about how the
Union’s Civil War
victory proved to be a beginning, not an ending; how it led to
a spike in white
supremacist groups and their efforts to keep newly
enfranchised black men from
voting; how the president who succeeded Lincoln and Andrew
Johnson, seemed
determined to undo the Union’s success; how the voting rights
for freed male
slaves guaranteed by the 15th Amendment were allowed to erode;
how the once
squeaky-clean Grant began surrounding himself with rich
friends and became
embroiled in financial scandal once he attained the power of
the presidency.
Also eerie is how Grant the
politician came to value
loyalty over ideology, and how stories of Ku Klux Klan
atrocities were
dismissed by Southerners as 'fairy tales' — i.e., fake news.
Then there’s the
fact that when Grant moved into the White House, he had a
statue of Thomas
Jefferson, the slave owner, removed from the north lawn and
sent to the
Capitol….
…But Grant is vast and
panoramic in ways that
history buffs will love. Books of its caliber by writers of
Chernow’s stature
are rare, and this one qualifies as a major event. “
Presentations could be about Grant’s
role in the
Civil War, or his term as president; many topics are
covered—reconstruction, the KKK, the portrayal of the southern
culture in Gone
with the Wind…; other presentations could explore the
South today, the
building of monuments, white supremacists, voting rights, etc.
Common
Reading: Grant,
by Ron Chernow
(October 10, 2017)
21.
(WON)
WELFARE
OF NATIONS
Welfare states have spread across
the advanced world
and are changing the very nature of modern civilization. The
form and function
of various welfare systems are varied and so is their
effectiveness. Some
countries have had to scale back their programs to avoid
economic problems. The
USA is currently struggling with the question of what extent
and style of
welfare system the country is willing to support.
This S/DG will look at various
systems around the
world to try to assess what works and what is not so good.
Possible
research/presentation topics might include: how important is
homogeneity of the
population; what are the social priorities in countries
studied; why do similar
programs in different countries provide different results; why
is high
unemployment so common in countries with extensive welfare
systems; etc.
Common
Reading: The Welfare of Nations, by James Bartholomew (CATO,
November 2016)
22. (WRI) CALLING ALL
WRITERS
Are you one of those people who
grabs paper and
pencil (or places fingers on a keyboard) and puts words on
paper? If so, you
are a writer.
People write for various reasons.
Some write to
capture memories. Some
write to feel
fully alive. Some
write to make a name
for themselves. Some
write to change the
world. Some write to find meaning. Humans
have a built-in
need to make our mark on the world. We want to bring new
things to life, to
mold things into
the image we have in
our imaginations, to subdue the earth.
We write not just to change the world, but to create
a new world.
This S/DG is an invitation to
writers to come
together, study the craft of writing, share ideas and share
their actual
writing with others. The
group will use
the book “Making a
Literary Life” by
Carolyn See as a springboard for writing ideas and motivation. The class meetings
will consist of short
presentations on writing techniques and prompts followed by a
sharing of the
member’s writing…not for critique but for inspiration. If you are a writer
or if you are a
“wanna-be” writer, this S/DG is for you.
Everyone has a story to tell!
Common
Reading: Making a Literary
Life: Advice for
Writers and Other Dreamers, by Carolyn See (August 13, 2002)
23. (YPO)
WHY POETRY
Matthew Zapruder, an award-winning
poet and professor
in the MFA program at Saint Mary's College of California,
provides insight that
leads his readers through many well-known poets and poems. As
an astute teacher
and writer, he reminds us to seek depth in words that shine
forth, activate and
light up understanding.
The goal is to enjoy the class and
find the pleasure
and understanding with the cogent and lively argument that
poetry truly matters
and is fueled by passion rather than pretense.
In a typical class meeting, two
members would each
choose a chapter from the book and send out to the class the
discussion
questions. For
the presentation
purposes, there would be two presenters; either one could
select a poet or one
or more poems for their presentation.
Common
Reading: Why Poetry, by Matthew Zapruder
(August 15, 2017)
24. (ZEN)
ZEN
AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE
MAINTENANCE: AN
INQUIRY INTO
VALUES
It’s
about a motorcycle
road trip from Minnesota to California on secondary
highways. It’s about
a man trying to re-bond with his estranged 11-year-old son,
who is riding on
the back of his motorcycle. It’s a mystery: who is Phaedrus?
It arcs from a
complete mental breakdown to competence and
self-fulfillment, written by the
man who traveled that road. It tries to bridge the gap
between romanticism and
technology. There’s a section on Gumptionology which has
people interested in
making a college course of it. It’s written in the form of a
Chautauqua, an odd
form of entertainment back in the day when speakers made
tours into the
heartland offering meaty subjects to think about. It’s a
cult book on the order
of Atlas Shrugged.
Robert Redford
wanted to make a movie of it at one time.
Possible
presentations:
·
Socrates to the
contrary, were the Sophists actually the good guys?
·
An essay on the
use of secondary highways for quality travel
·
How do you
reconcile Romanticism and Technology on philosophical and
everyday levels?
·
Your opinion of
his use of non-graded papers in Rhetoric?
·
What is Quality?
·
An introductory
lecture for Gumptionology 101A/B, w/syllabi
·
Pirsig’s use of
“platforms”
·
Electroshock
therapy pros and cons and its status today
·
Pirsig’s son and
later, daughter, and their eerie connection
·
Pirsig’s later
work
·
ZAMM forums on
the web
Common
Reading: Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance:
An Inquiry Into Values, by Robert M.
Pirsig (April 21, 2009)