The course will consider six case studies involving water in metropolitan Boston that illustrate the broad range of challenges and threats to drinking water, streams, groundwater, wetlands, and coastal waters. Each case study will present the issues, challenges and potential solutions, including both traditional engineering technologies and emerging alternative nature-based approaches. Class presentations and discussions will focus on such matters as Boston groundwater, emerging contaminants, the EPA’s new stormwater program, depleted water flows at the Ipswich River, and the threat posed to water by Chapter 40B affordable housing…

Wolfgang Amadè Mozart was a master of both the Italian operatic style and of German opera, or singspiel.  A singspiel, performed in German and interspersed with spoken dialogue rather than sung recitatives, was intended for lower and middle class audiences and predominantly featured comic plots.  This seminar will focus on The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), with its scandalous Turkish harem, and The Magic Flute (1791), a fairy tale allegory of good and evil.  These operas reflect some of the political and social issues of the time, including…

The reader of the above title is no doubt wondering, “alternative to what?” The short answer to that question is the following: Contrary to the long-held view that the musical aspect of a vocal work “captures” the text, the contention here is that music, full of its own meanings and conventions acquired over centuries of cultural development, works with the text along “parallel” lines. Rather than the musical meanings being directly — one might say, inexorably — dependent on those of the words, the music complements the words;…

We have endured 9/11 and its aftermath. Now we are just beginning to confront 2/24, the day that Russia invaded Ukraine, and all that will follow it. In this discussion-focused course, we will take a deep breath and contemplate the hard realities and questions likely to emerge. In our inquiry, we will give particular attention to the work of two scholars who have a deep knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian history: Tim Snyder, author of The Road to Unfreedom and Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy. But…

This seminar will examine the Augustan Age with a double lens.  For a close-up of the history and politics of the age, we will read sections of Michael Grant's History of Rome.  For the literary arts, we will read poetry by Horace, Vergil, Catullus and Ovid, as well as a section of Livy's History of Rome. We will also consider the architecture and sculpture of the age. Augustus, known first as Octavian, "ruled" Rome from 27 B.C.E to 14 C.E. with such a patient, strategic and skillful hand…

In this seminar, we will read and discuss the first book of the Bible, where it all began. Each session will start with an introduction to the material, followed by chapter reading and discussion. We will try to follow the Quadriga method, approaching the text in the following four ways: literal, symbolic, moral and anagogic. No prior knowledge of the Bible or the Book of Genesis is required. Participants are encouraged to use more than one version of the Bible if possible and have access to one for…

The six-session course will begin with an analysis of the failure of the Yalta Agreement, followed by the Potsdam Conference and the concerns raised there about the Soviet Union taking over all the countries in Eastern Europe. The course will then move to the Cardinal Mindszenty affair and the beginning of the Berlin Airlift, and consider why the latter was so important. The Proxy Wars come next, with discussion of the Korean War and how that war affected the relationship of the United States, the Soviet Union and…

This course will explore the workings of the human heart. Using video images, 3D reconstructions, and wax-impregnated hearts, we will examine the anatomy, physiology, evolutionary development, and embryological development of this key organ. We will explore how the heart works and what keeps it going – and discuss how things can go wrong and result in various types of heart problems. The diagnostic and imaging tools that allow physicians to examine the heart will also be surveyed, from the stethoscope and the electrocardiogram to angiography, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging. Childhood heart…

Lowell once wrote to his friend Elizabeth Bishop: “My trouble is to bring together in me the Puritanical iron hand of constraint and the gushes of pure wildness. One can’t survive or write without both but they need to come to terms.” This seems to get at the heart of his poetic output. Between bouts of manic-depressive illness, Lowell wrote extended examinations of the influence of the past on New England history and culture. He also probed into his own illustrious family and his relationships with his wives,…

There was a time when the extent of the oceans was unknown; was it all one expanse of water, or were the seas divided from each other by land? And who were the people who settled this question? The exploration of three-quarters of the Earth has been the greatest adventure of all time, undertaken by merchants, adventurers, warriors, pilgrims and explorers in pursuit of trade, travel, war, piracy, holiness, exploration, colonization and migration. These adventurers ploughed the waves in vessels dwarfed by the immensity around them, bringing upon…