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Courses, 2014 – 2015

 * 1510) Dante’s Divine Comedy: Purgatory. Prof. Margaret Brose**

Margaret Brose is Professor Emerita of Literature, UCSC. She has written widely on Italian Literature (from Dante, Petrarch, Leopardi, to Primo Levi); her book //Leopardi Sublime// won the Modern Language Association’s Mararro prize for the best book in Italian Literary Studies (2000). She has been teaching Dante at UCSC for over 25 years.

In Dan Brown’s thriller //Inferno// (NY Times best seller since May 2013), its protagonist, Professor Robert Langdon, declares in his lecture to the Dante Society in Vienna that “no single work of writing, art, music, or literature has inspired more tributes, imitations, variations, and annotations than //The Divine Comedy//.”

This OLLI course will focus on //Purgatory//, the second book of //The Divine Comedy// by Dante Alighieri (1265– 1321), a three-part epic poem about the poet’s journey into the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise). We will examine the innovative cosmological, ethical and psychological bases of Dante’s afterlife, and read in-depth selected episodes (//canti)// of //Purgatory//. We will explore Dante’s emotional dialogues with the repentant sinners (classical heroes and heroines, popes and clerics, rival poets, and contemporaries of Dante), and trace Dante’s own personal involvement with sin and purgation.

According to Dante, Purgatory is the place in which “the human spirit purges herself, and climbing to Heaven makes herself worthy.” Dante’s Purgatory consists of an island mountain, the only piece of land in the southern hemisphere. Divided into three sections, Ante-purgatory, Purgatory proper, and the Earthly Paradise, the lower slopes are reserved for souls whose penance had been delayed. The upper part of the mountain consists of seven terraces, each of which corresponds to one of the seven capital sins (Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust). Atop the mountain Dante locates Eden, the Earthly Paradise, the place where the pilgrim is reunited with Beatrice, the woman who inspired the poem. Stay tuned for the culmination of the most unusual personal love story in world literature. Dante had journeyed through the //Inferno// with the Roman poet Virgil, author of the //Aeneid.// Virgil is a long-time inhabitant of Hell (he has been in Limbo since his death in 19 B.C.E), and thus was able to guide Dante skillfully through the 9 circles of //Inferno//. However, both Dante and Virgil are first-time visitors to Purgatory. That Virgil, a Pagan poet, is allowed to climb the seven terraces of Mt. Purgatory, and to reach the Earthly paradise (Eden) is but one of the many ways Dante confers upon Virgil a prophetic and almost-Christian status.

Most people assume that Hell is the most riveting part of the //Divine Comedy//; after all, who does not enjoy the gruesome portrayal of sin and its appropriate punishments? But in many respects, //Purgatorio//is even more original and daring than the //Inferno//; its descriptions of the landscapes and various forms of purgation are virtually without precedent//.// There is a long tradition (both Western and Eastern) of stories of people purporting to have visited Hell and Heaven. __But no one before Dante had ever traveled to Purgatory; indeed, the existence of Purgatory itself was only affirmed as Church doctrine in 1274.__Dante’s //Purgatory// was the first and remains today the most influential written account of this middle realm of the afterlife. Why Purgatory becomes essential to Church doctrine in the 13th century will be a central focus of the class.

All OLLI members are welcome; having read the //Inferno// is not a “prerequisite” to reading //Purgatory//.

Recommended Text: __The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Purgatory__, trans. and ed. by Robert Durling & Ronald Martinez (NY & Oxford; Ox- ford UP, 2003). ISBN 0-19- 508741-0. This is a wonderful, prize-winning bilingual text, with excellent notes, translated by UCSC Prof. Emeritus of Literature Robert Durling. It should be available in used copies at Logos, Bookshop Santa Cruz, and Amazon online.

Six Tuesdays: Feb 3, 10, 17, 24; March 3, 10, 2015; from 10 to noon at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz.

**1511) Sweet and Low: Opera’s Deeper Artistry. Miriam Ellis**

Miriam Ellis has been teaching classes at UCSC in French, opera, theater, and literature for over thirty years. Miriam is the founder and guiding light of the very successful International Playhouse performances each May.

This course will be devoted to the mezzo, contralto, baritone, and basso voice categories, with representative arias and works that illustrate these voice types. We will explore many styles, ranging from the Baroque to Verismo, interpreted by leading artists and composers. Among the latter, we’ll consider works by Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Bizet, Massenet, Cilea, and more.

Five Wednesday mornings, February 4, 11, 18, 25, and March 4 from 1 to 3 pm. at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz.

**1512) Survey of Chinese Poetry. Prof. Dale Johnson**

Dale Johnson, Emeritus Professor of Chinese Literature.

Professor Johnson will continue his ongoing OLLI exploration of the remarkable poetry of China. This course will focus on Chinese Poetry from 2500 BC to 1200 AD. Four Thursdays: Feb 5, 12, 19, 26, 10 a.m. to noon. Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz.

Texts of poetry will be emailed to participants.

**1513) The Changing Position of the US in World Affairs: New Trends, New Problems in the 21st Century. Professor Ronnie Gruhn**

ISIS, Putin, China, the Weakening of International Institutions ( UN and EU etc), Climate Change and other phenomena have in recent years altered the nature of the international system. US Foreign Policy and America’s influence and role is also changing. This course will seek to address what is going on in 2014 -15 that is new and different with a focus on what the US role in the new world disorder seems to be, ought to be, and can be.

Professor Gruhn has a passionate and undiminished interest in reading, writing, and talking about world affairs. Her courses offer powerful insights into what is happening today.

This course will take place on two Thursday afternoons, February 19 and 26 from 2 to 4 at the Museum of Art and History on Front St. in downtown Santa Cruz.

**1514) Self-Justification and Self-Compassion. Prof. Elliot Aronson**

Professor Elliot Aronson is an Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology, UCSC. He is listed among the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century.

Self-justification is one of the most prevalent and powerful of human motivations. As fallible human beings, we all share the impulse to justify our decisions and actions and avoid taking responsibility for any that turn out to be harmful, mindless, stupid, or wrong.

For most of us in our everyday lives, the self-justifications we come up with to soften our blunders and help us live with bad decisions are harmless, but self-justification also lies at the root of much human malevolence, cruelty, hypocrisy, and corruption. Understanding how it works offers an answer to the question so many people ask when they look at ruthless dictators, greedy corporate CEOs, religious zealots who murder in the name of God, parents who humiliate their children, or adults who cheat their siblings out of a family inheritance: “How in the world can they live with themselves?”

This is a seminar—meaning that students will be expected to participate in class discussions.

This course will take place at Professor Aronson’s home, 136 Tree Frog Lane, Santa Cruz on four Wednesdays, March 4, 11, 18 and 25. 1:30 to 3:00 PM

**1515) Santa Cruz Shakespeare. Prof. Michael Warren**

Professor Michael Warren is emeritus professor of literature at UCSC and has been a consultant to Shakespeare S.C. since its inception.

We are fortunate to again have Prof. Michael Warren, a very knowledgeable and vastly entertaining Shakespeare scholar presenting a course for us. His Shakespeare courses for OLLI for the previous five years have been enthusiastically praised by our members.

The two plays that Santa Cruz Shakespeare will be presenting this year are “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Macbeth.” These plays will be the focus of Professor Warren’s course.

Three Thursdays, March 5, 19, and 26 from 10 to 12:30. (Please note: no class on March 12.). Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St, Santa Cruz.

Professor Warren requests that students read the first four acts of “Much Ado About Nothing” before the first class.

**1516) Spring Birds Around Monterey Bay. Prof. Todd Newberry**

Professor Todd Newberry, a UCSC professor emeritus, lifelong birdwatcher, and author of “The Ardent Birder,” has again agreed to teach his very popular lifelong birdwatching class, Spring Birds around Monterey Bay.

Todd emphasizes how to look for and listen to birds, and you will finish the class with a new awareness of the natural world. It will involve easy walking, but a considerable amount of standing absolutely still. If this is a problem, bring a small folding chair. Also, remember to bring binoculars.The class will meet on four Monday mornings promptly at 8:00 a.m. on April 6, 13, 20, and 27. The first class will meet in the front parking lot of the UCSC Arboretum, and Todd will arrange meeting places for subsequent classes. This class limited to 12 students.

**1517) History of Writing. Prof. Gildas Hamel**

Professor Gildas Hamel was born in Brittany; he taught high school in Jerusalem in 1966-68 while attending courses at the École Biblique where he fell in love with scholarship. He became an instructor in French at UCSC in 1974, got a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness in 1983, and continued to teach French as well as classical languages and history.

This illustrated course will present the extraordinary systems of writing that appeared several thousand years ago in Sumer, Egypt, China, and the Americas. Why did certain societies tend to represent the flow of ideas and objects while others were more disposed to point to the stream of sounds? What were they particularly keen on representing? What were the religious, economic, and political aspects of writing? How did the notion of Scripture develop together with writing? We will pursue the parallel stories of these systems and give particular attention to the long history of alphabetic scripts, from Proto-Canaanite to our modern computer keyboards.

Two Tuesdays, April 14 and 21 from 10 to noon at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St, Santa Cruz.

**1518) Fantastic Fictions. Prof. Helene Moglen**

Fantastic fictions expose the illusions of realism through nightmarish representations of middle-class society. Revealing culture’s deep anxiety about families, sexuality, religion, science, and the self, they enact—through character and narrative form--their ambivalence about gender, class and racial identities. Texts are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, R.L. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Professor Emerta Helene Moglen is a literary feminist psychoanalytic critic. At UCSC, she was Professor of Literature and Dean of Humanities. She has published books in literary studies and was selected as the first woman ever to give the UCSC Emeriti Lecture, At our meeting last May, she gave a very well-received talk, “From Frankenstein to Facebook.” At that time, many of our members were hoping she would teach a course for us.

The class is limited to 20 students. It will take place on 4 Thursday afternoons, April 2, 9,16, and 23 from 2 to 4 at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St. in downtown Santa Cruz. Last class has been rescheduled for April 30 from 2 to 4 at MAH.

**Modern Molecular Biology, Year 5**
Four Professors from UCSC present an overview of current research topics, addressing fundamental questions about how living creatures grow and reproduce. They will also describe how discoveries in molecular biology are used to develop treatments for human diseases. A background in science is not necessary. Everyone with an interest in biology and medicine is encouraged to attend. Many of us found the first four years of this course fascinating as we learned about cutting edge research at UCSC.

The Molecular Biology Course will be offered on four consecutive Saturday mornings, beginning October 25th at 10:00 a.m. in the Physical Sciences Building, room 240, the same place as last year.

Oct. 25: Barry Bowman – Genes, Proteins and Mitochondria

Nov. 1: Melissa Jurica – RNA- the All-Purpose Molecule

Nov. 8: Don Smith – The Achilles’ Heel of Environmental Health Research

Nov. 15: David Haussler – Genomics

**Women in the Bible and Medieval Europe**
Gail Greenwood

This course is the next in a series of surveys of Women in Western Civilization. It also will stand alone so if you didn’t take Women in the Ancient Western World, it is not a problem. We will start with a brief review of Symbols and Images of the Goddess, followed by the Hebrew Goddesses, and Women in the Old Testament. Christianity and the women of the New Testament, as well as the development of the Christian church and its effect on women, will follow. Women both as portrayed in the Bible and women who helped develop the religion will be touched upon. Finally, we will look at the lives of Medieval women and their participation on the development of Chivalry, Nobility, and Courtly Love.

Wednesdays, October 29, November 5, 12 &19, from 10 a.m. to noon, at the Museum of Art and History.

====**Tillie Olsen: The Writing and the Human Being: A Personal Contemplation**====

Julie Olsen Edwards

Tillie Olsen, 1912–2007, was internationally known and honored for powerful, poetic writing that showed respect, profound understanding, and deep love for the lives she described, the lives of women, of working class people, and of people of color. Her books, Tell Me a Riddle, Yonnondio: From the Thirties, Silences, and her essays and lectures, have been translated into twelve languages. Her work has significantly added to the understanding of creative processes and the conditions which permit imagination to flourish. For many readers she became a major force in their lives in which they saw their own stories made visible and their own struggles dignified in compressed, resonant prose. Join us for two afternoons of conversation about Tillie and her work led by one of her daughters, Julie Olsen Edwards. You are encouraged to read the newly published collection of her short work, Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Works (available at Bookshop Santa Cruz), which includes five “lost” pieces (four from the 1930s and one from the early 1970s).

Tillie’s website is: www.tillieolsen.net. You can contact Julie at julieoe@gmail.com.

Julie Olsen Edwards, the second of Tillie’s four daughters, has been on the Cabrillo College faculty since 1971. She is a writer, editor, and frequent public speaker on issues of families, children and education, and the impacts of bias and injustice on us all.

November 13 and 20, 1:30 to 3:45 p.m., at the Museum of Art and History.

**Cosmology. Prof. Roger Knacke**
Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, and on its largest scales – its creation, its contents, its limits, its history, and its destiny. The subject is at the forefront of science today with questions that impact our most fundamental understanding of nature. We’ll develop overviews of many of the most critical issues, how they arose through observations and theory, and of the radical ground-based and space-based telescopes and instruments being developed to explore them.

Preliminary outline for meetings:

1. Galaxies; The Expanding Universe 2. Gravity and the Universe; The Great Telescopes 3. The Cosmic Background Radiation; The First Three Minutes 4. Dark Matter; The Inflationary Universe 5. Formation of the First Stars and Galaxies; Black Holes 6. Dark Energy; The Multiverse; Future Directions

Dr. Roger Knacke is Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Penn State Erie, and retired as Director of the School of Science in 2010. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and has held positions at SUNY Stony Brook, Max Planck Institute for Kernphysik Heidelberg, NASA Ames, NASA Huntsville, and a postdoctoral position at UC Santa Cruz. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers on interstellar and circumstellar matter and planetary atmospheres; held NASA and NSF grants, and initiated or participated in the development of courses, outreach, and teaching methodologies at Penn State and Stony Brook.

Tuesday, October 14, 21 & 28, November 4, 11 & 18, 10 a.m. to noon, Museum of Art and History.

**Poetry with David Swanger**
The course will include a reading of David Swanger’s own work, a discussion of specific poems and of poetics, and an opportunity for the students to write and share their own poetry.

UCSC Emeritus Professor Swanger was the Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County in 2012. He taught educational philosophy for the Education Department and poetry for the Literature Department, and has published several books of poetry, including Wayne’s College of Beauty: New and Selected Poems, for which he received the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. He has won several other poetry awards. Since he became Poet Laureate, he has taught poetry classes at the homeless shelter. As he has noted:

“Poetry is important as it has always been, for expressions of the human condition and our connections with each other. You discover your own feelings that you didn't know you had, and have a form in which you can share them. Poetry can teach us empathy, in that we can feel what others feel when the poem is right.”

September 24, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Museum of Art and History.

**Europe’s Right Wing: East and West**
Prof. Peter Kenez Prof. Ronnie Gruhn

Even a casual reader of the newspapers might conclude that “united Europe” is unraveling. It may be worthwhile to examine the emergence of a seeming new phenomenon: powerful right-wing currents in every European country. We hope to discuss what these movement have in common and how they are also different from one another.

Peter Kenez is a UCSC emeritus professor of History with scholarly expertise in Eastern European history.

Ronnie Gruhn is a UCSC emeritus professor of Politics whose scholarly expertise has included Western European Politics.

Thursdays, October 16, 23 & 30, 10 a.m. to noon at the Museum of Art and History.

**1507) George Bernard Shaw. Prof. John Dizikes**

Professor John Dizikes, Emeritus Professor of American Studies.

Prof Dizikes will present four movies of Shaw’s work, with discussion before and after the movies. Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz on Tuesdays, January 6, 13, 20, and 27 from 9:30 to 12:15.

**1508) Stories of Philosophy: Four illustrated sessions on vision, testimony, and the ethics of interpretation. Prof. Bob Goff.**

Professor Robert Goff is retired from UCSC where he taught philosophy for many years. In addition to courses in the standard philosophy curriculum, his seminar offerings included Comic Embodiment; Element, Thing, and Metaphor; Philosophical Autobiography: and Philosophy and the Holocaust. He has taught several fascinating class for OLLI.

There will be four sessions

I. Ancient origins from myth and poetry: Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Sophocles, Zhuangzi, Socrates

II. Radical description: Descartes, Rembrandt, and Dr. Tulp (“The Anatomy Lesson”)

III. Radical description, cont.: Heidegger on Van Gogh’s shoes; Merleau-Ponty on Cezanne’s apples; Kandinsky and Morandi on abstraction

IV. Philosophers’ turns to folk narrative and aphorism: Hebel, Leskov, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Brecht (Short non-technical readings will be available by e-mail prior to each session.)

The class will meet at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz on Wednesdays, January 7, 14, 21, and 28 from 10 to noon.

**1509) Classical music in a Time of World Chaos, 1905–1960. Prof. Bob Kraft**
 * Class could not be presented.**

Professor Robert Kraft is professor emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UCSC. From 1970 to 1980, Prof. Kraft gave a Stevenson College course called Beethoven’s Music. Many OLLI members have found that listening to music with Prof. Kraft’s guidance has enhanced their appreciation and understanding of classical music.

A 13-week survey of music during the decline, yet partial survival of the Romantic ideal, in opera, symphony and chamber music. Works by such figures as Stravinsky, Bartok,R. Strauss, Schoenberg, Berg, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Debussy, Ives, Copland, Hindemith, Walton, and Britten will be heard. Thirteen weekly three hour sessions, from 1:30 to 4:30 PM will be held in Professor Kraft’s home, 830 Pine Tree Lane, Aptos 95003 beginning Tuesday, January 13.

The course was limited to 20 students. 

A Short History of Monotheism. Gildas Hamel
The following questions will be discussed.

1. Does monotheism have a history? Who, why, how, and when?

2. Is there such a thing as ethical monotheism (or where do the ethics come from, did it change nature with monotheism)?

3. Monotheism and violence: does monotheism foster greater violence and intolerance?

4. Did monotheism contribute to scientific views?

There will be readings and iconography distributed in advance (so register early.)

Gildas Hamel recently retired from UCSC where he taught classes in French, classical languages and history. He was a very well liked and honored teacher. Dr. Hamel was born in Brittany; he taught high school in Jerusalem in 1966-68 while attending courses at the École Biblique where he fell in love with scholarship. He became an instructor in French at UCSC in 1974, got a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness in 1983, and continued to teach French as well as classical languages and history.

Tuesdays: April 1, 8, 15, & 22, 10 a.m. to noon, Museum of Art and History, Front St., Santa Cruz.



Images selected by website editor S. Zaslaw and may be unrelated to course contents.

1414

From Page to Stage. Miriam Ellis
From Page to Stage, a course devoted to reading significant texts and studying their interpretation in performance, will be offered on eight Wednesdays, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m, in February and March, 2014, at the Museum of Art and History. February 5, 12, 19 & 26, March 5, 12, 19 & 26. Please note that **on February 12, the class will start at 11:30**.

We will explore the novella, Carmen, by Mérimée (in Carmen and Other Stories, World’s Classics edition); Romeo and Juliet, (in the New Folger Library Shakespeare edition); and Pygmalion, by G.B. Shaw (Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, Signet Classics.) We will read the relevant text before the class devoted to its discussion, for a lively exchange of ideas. Various adaptations of these works in opera, musical theater, TV, ballet, and film will be investigated. In addition, we will discuss several Broadway productions and their sources, e.g., A Little Night Music, Working, Oklahoma, West Side Story, and others, as time permits. Miriam Ellis will lead the class, with the welcome participation of invited guests, well-known to OLLI members.

1410

Two Shakespeare Plays. Prof. Michael Warren
We are fortunate to have Prof. Michael Warren, a very knowledgeable and vastly entertaining Shakespeare scholar presenting a four-session course. His Shakespeare courses for us the previous four years have been enthusiastically praised by our members as deeply rewarding and even exhilarating.

Prof. Warren will dedicate the first two meetings to //The Merry Wives of Windsor//, thus completing our reading of all the Falstaff plays; **participants should read the first three acts for the first class**. The second play we will read this year, to be performed this summer in Santa Cruz, is //As You Like It//.

Michael Warren is emeritus professor of literature at UCSC and has been a consultant to Shakespeare S.C. since its inception. When he was awarded the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award he was described as follows:

“Warren teaches his courses with a sense of humor, a love of his subjects, and a great desire to see his students learn. He strives to make Shakespeare’s plays and other literature understandable, exciting, and accessible.”

March 6, 13, 20, and 27, 10 to noon at the Museum of Art & History, Front St., Santa Cruz..

More details and reading assignment for first class will be announced.

1411

Dante’s Inferno. Prof. Margaret Brose

 * Reading for 1st class, Tuesday, January 28: Inferno Canto 1**

In Dan Brown’s new thriller //Inferno// (NY Times best seller since May 14, 2013), its protagonist, Professor Robert Langdon, declares in his lecture to the Dante Society in Vienna that “no single work of writing, art, music, or literature has inspired more tributes, imitations, variations, and annotations than //The Divine Comedy//.”

This OLLI course will focus on the Inferno, the first book of //The Divine Comedy// by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a three-part epic poem about the poet’s journey into the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise).

We will examine briefly the innovative cosmological, cultural, ethical and psychological bases of Dante’s Hell, and read in depth selected episodes (canti). We follow Dante as he is led by his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, through the sins of lust, heresy, sodomy, and betrayal. We will explore the realistic nature of Dante’s emotional dialogues with the sinners (classical heroes, literary heroines, popes, saints, and contemporaries of Dante), and learn why the concept of “poetic justice” is based on Dante’s //Inferno//.

Recommended Text:

//The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno//, trans. and ed. by Robert Durling & Ronald Martinez (NY & Oxford; Oxford UP, 1996). ISBN 978-0-19-508744-4

This is a wonderful bilingual text, with excellent notes, translated by UCSC Prof. Emeritus Robert Durling. It should be available in used copies at Logos, Bookshop Santa Cruz, and Amazon online. There are many used copies available, for example, [|click here].

Instructor:

Margaret Brose is Prof. Emerita of Literature, UCSC. She has written widely on Italian Literature (from Petrarch to Primo Levi); her book Leopardi Sublime won the MLA Mararro prize for best book in Italian Literary Studies (2000). She has been teaching Dante at UCSC for over 20 years.

This course will meet on six Tuesdays, starting January 28 from 10 to noon at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St.

1409

Spring Birds Around Monterey Bay. Prof. Todd Newberry
Todd Newberry, a UCSC professor emeritus, lifelong birdwatcher, and author of “The Ardent Birder,” has again agreed to teach his very popular birdwatching class, Spring Birds around Monterey Bay. Todd emphasizes how to look for and listen to birds, and you will finish the class with a new awareness of the natural world. It will involve easy walking, but a considerable amount of standing absolutely still. If this is a problem, bring a small folding chair. Also, remember to bring binoculars. The class will meet on four Tuesday mornings promptly at 8:00 a.m. on March 4, 11, 18, and 25. The first class will meet in the parking lot of the UCSC Arboretum, and Todd will arrange subsequent classes.

Only 12 students can be registered for this course. **Coupon must be postmarked by February 15, 2014.** You will be notified if you are enrolled or not in the course.

If you cannot be enrolled in the class your donation intended for the class will not be processed. Please note that a separate coupon and payment are required to register for this class so we can return payments to overflow registrants.

1413

Some of China’s Greatest Short Stories. Prof. Dale Johnson
Dale Johnson, Professor of Chinese at Oberlin College and UCSC, now emeritus, who so engagingly demonstrated to us his love for and knowledge of Chinese literature for the past two years, will be reading and discussing famous Chinese short stories.

The course will meet four Wednesday mornings, January 8, 15, 22, and 29 from 10 to noon at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street.

Please register early and include your email address so that we can send you the reading materials with instructions of what to read before the first class. 1407

Two Poets. Prof. John Dizikes
We are happy to have one of our favorite renaissance men, Emeritus Professor of American Studies John Dizikes, teaching for us after a year’s sabbatical. We are fortunate that Professor Dizikes has taught a number of courses for us. His presentation, his depth of knowledge, and his passion for the subject matter are always admired. This is an opportunity for you to have a course with a master teacher. Professor Dizikes will be reading and discussing the poetry of W. H. Auden and Emily Dickinson. He will also offer insight into their lives.

The course will meet on two Thursday mornings, January 9 and January 16 from 10 to noon at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street 1408

Music in the Romantic Era, Part 2, 1860 to 1910. Prof. Robert Kraft.
We will survey the music of Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak, Bizet, Musorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Franck, Mahler, and early Sibelius, Debussy, Vaughan Williams and Delius. As usual there will be a mix of orchestral and chamber music in addition to opera.

This is a continuation of Part 1, given in the spring of 2013. However Part 1 is not a prerequisite for Part 2.

The course will meet for 13 weeks on Tuesday afternoons starting at 1:30 p.m. and lasting for three hours, beginning on Tuesday, Jan. 7, in Prof. Kraft’s home in Aptos.

Robert Kraft is professor emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UCSC. From 1970 to 1980, Prof. Kraft gave a Stevenson College course called //Beethoven’s Music//.

Only 15 students will be registered for this course, so we will accept the first 15 who mail in the coupon for this course before December 1. You will be notified whether or not you are enrolled in the course and sent the address of the professor’s home.

1406

Social Influence, Prof. Elliot Aronson & Jill Steinberg
Closed to new registrants.

We human beings are social animals. As such we are influenced by others — the people around us as well as those no longer living. We are also influenced by people we have never met — by Presidential candidates, editorial writers, and film stars endorsing a product. How does this influence take place? Why do we accept influence or, put another way, what’s in it for us? What are the variables that increase or decrease the effectiveness of social influence? Can good people be influenced to perform evil acts? How does one person come to like another person? Is it through these same processes that we come to like our new sports car or a box of Wheaties? How does a person develop prejudices against an ethnic or racial group? Is it akin to liking — but in reverse — or does it involve an entirely different set of psychological processes? How can prejudice be reduced? Does watching aggression on TV increase a person’s aggressiveness? When criticizing a close friend, how can you avoid offending him or her?

These are some of the topics we will cover in the course. This is a seminar — meaning that students will be expected to participate in class discussions. In order to do this, we will be doing some reading in preparation for each meeting — usually less than 50 pages per week.. Please do not sign up for the course unless you are prepared to do the reading.

We are assigning only one little book: The Social Animal (11th edition) by Elliot Aronson, www.amazon.com/The-Social-Animal-Elliot-Aronson/dp/1429233419/ref=pd_sim_b_2. If you can beg, borrow, or steal a copy of this book, by all means do so — but, because it is drastically over-priced, we are not requiring you to buy one. We will e-mail all class members a digital version of the book, without charge. Used copies are said to be available on-line.

The Instructors
Elliot Aronson is a social psychologist. You can find more about him at: [].

Jill Steinberg is a clinical psychologist. You can find more about her at: [].

Course Logistics
The course meets for six weeks, Wednesdays, 1:30 –3:00 p.m., beginning September 18 and ending October 23, at Elliot's home, We will take a wait list.

The Quantum Enigma, Prof. Bruce Rosenblum
Closed to new registrants.

A seminar on the mystery presented by quantum mechanics. Though quantum mechanics is the most successful theory in science, and the basis of one third of our economy, it describes an unbelievable world. After some introductory background, we will discuss the undisputed experiments displaying “the quantum measurement problem,” also called “the observer problem.” Discussion will follow readings in the Second Edition of Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner. For our first meeting, please read Chapters 1 and 2. Absolutely no physics background is assumed (although participants with a physics background are also welcome).

Bruce Rosenblum retired as professor of physics from UCSC, having also held several administrative positions on campus. He also consulted extensively on policy and technical issues for the federal government and for corporations. Before joining UCSC, Bruce spent a decade in research and research management in the electronics industry.

The course will be held on ten Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 4, starting September 18, at Bruce's home in Santa Cruz. There is ample parking on the street.

World Affairs, 2013 & Beyond, Prof. Ronnie Gruhn
Course Completed.

Ronnie Gruhn, Professor Emerita of Politics at UCSC, conducted a course consisting of two classes about world affairs.

She has a passionate and undiminished interest in reading, writing, and talking about world affairs. She has given several courses for OLLI and members found her to be engaging, knowledgeable, fair, and certainly relevant. Her classes on U.S. Foreign Policy, Pre and Post Election, and on Africa, were very well attended and widely enjoyed.

Session 1: Old Powers, New Powers: From China to Qatar, from Gates to Jihadists

Session 2: Twenty First Century Issues, the Old and the New: security, human migration, technology, climate change, and others.

The course will met on two Tuesdays, October 8 and October 15 at the Museum of Art and History.

Women in the Ancient Western World, Gail Greenwood
Have you ever wondered what we’re doing with bunnies bringing eggs at Easter, and pine trees covered with baubles to celebrate the birth of a Jewish baby? Gail Greenwood did, and it never made sense to her until she learned about women’s history. She is now offering us an 8-hour survey course she’s calling “Women in the Ancient Western World.” The primary idea examined will be that the story changes when the point of view of the story teller changes; though the actual facts may be the same, the significance of the facts and even which dates matter alter when viewed from women’s rather than from men’s perspective. The course will begin with Prehistory — The Great Mother and her cave children, with an examination of why we don’t begin with the Greeks — followed with the Ancient Near East, Egypt, and Crete. Then we will (in a great sweep of thousands of years in an hour or two) look at ancient and classical Greece, Rome, and the Judeo-Christian heritage.

Gail Greenwood is a retired community college history teacher. For thirty-four years, she taught survey courses in American History, Western Civilization, and Women in both American and Western Civilization. In the 1970s she created the first Women in American History courses at American River College. Her students kept asking her to explain all the odd assumptions of the founding parents and wouldn’t accept her answer that “They brought the beliefs with them along with their Bibles, pots, and pillows.” She had to return to reading and studying and then she created a course about Women in Western Civilization. Her first startling discovery for one trained in modern Western Civilization with a focus on the Third Reich was that she ended up clear back in archaeology. Fortunately this multidisciplinary approach didn’t bother folks at the community college and she hopes it will also be accepted by lifelong learners willing to gallop through history.

Wednesdays, Oct. 23 and 30, Nov. 6 and 13, 10 to noon, Museum of Art and History. 1404

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A Look at Modern Molecular Biology, Year 4
Four Professors from UCSC present an overview of current research topics, addressing fundamental questions about how living creatures grow and reproduce. They will also describe how discoveries in molecular biology are used to develop treatments for human diseases. A background in science is not necessary. Everyone with an interest in biology and medicine is encouraged to attend. Many of us found the first three years of this course fascinating as we learned about cutting edge research at UCSC.


 * 26 October**. Barry Bowman: How do we “see” genes and proteins?


 * 2 November**. Carrie Partch: “Circadian rhythms: how a daily molecular clock controls your physiology”


 * 9 November**. William Sullivan: Cell Cycle, Cytoskeleton and Pathogenesis


 * 16 November**. John Tamkun: Epigenetics

Lectures will be 10:30 - 11:30 Saturday mornings in Room 240 of the Physical Science Building, across the street from the [|Core West Parking Structure]. Parking is free. There will be signs in the Core West Parking Structure directing you to the building

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