Join us to study and discuss The Book of Exodus, the second of the five books of the Torah and the Pentateuch (five books in Greek) in the Bible. The Book of Exodus tells the story of the Israelites’ travails and tribulations in trying to leave Egypt and return to their homeland and is full of events that are as topical today as they were thousands of years ago. Studying this divine story of the journey home will provide deeper insight into an understanding of the single God…

Under the artistic spell of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael, the next generation of Italian painters, including Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino, Beccafumi, Lavinia Fontana, and Vasari, began to conceive new artistic conceits between 1520 and 1575. These painters cultivated a personal style, contradicting the laws of anatomical proportions, pictorial space, light effects, and coloration. They composed artificial and beautiful images, evoking the spirit of viewers and daring their intellect and knowledge. In Mannerist paintings, the refinement of form and content produces an inventive art filled with graceful poses and…

This course is shaped by a close reading of the late John le Carré’s greatest novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. In addition to its incredibly clever plot and penetrating account of life in the world of Cold War intelligence, Le Carré’s novel offers an encyclopedic look at England and Europe (with important glimpses of America and the rest of the world) in the long postwar period and remarkable opportunities to discuss the paradoxes of intelligence, security and transatlantic politics; class, imperialism, sexuality, and other aspects of British culture…

This seminar will explore the primary venues for the performance of Western art music before public concerts became common. These settings, which included royal courts, churches, and private salons throughout Europe, played important roles in the music’s composition and performance and influenced the development of various music genres. We will start with the incredible culture of the Parisian salon in the 1650s-1670s and examine how private vocal and instrumental music performed there laid the groundwork for the opera and ballet that were the mainstay at the French Court…

--NOW ONLINE-- Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, and for over 50 years it was her only novel until Go Set a Watchman was released in 2015, a few months before her death. In the half century between the two novels, To Kill a Mockingbird won a Pulitzer Prize (1961), was adapted as an Academy Award winning movie (1962), and became a well acclaimed Broadway play (2018). It has been published in over 40 languages and sold over 40 million copies. Based on Lee’s childhood,…

This course offers a series of lectures covering recent advances in research topics in aging and aging-related diseases (including cancers, neurological and cardiovascular diseases, susceptibility to infectious diseases, etc.) and the use of cutting-edge methods such as CRISPR and stem cells to address them. In partnership with the Mass General Postdoc Association (MGPA), current investigators (MD/PhD research fellows, staff, and faculty) at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School will deliver talks about their ongoing research and related topics in aging. The weekly class format will entail…

America’s vision is described in the Declaration of Independence: “All men (humans) are created equal.” The Reconstruction period after the Civil War produced three critical amendments to the Constitution that extended this vision. They were the 13th banning slavery; the 14th establishing birthright citizenship; and the 15th prohibiting laws that would ban the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude. However, it would not be until 1920 when the 19th amendment established women’s right to vote that the original vision seemed to be…

Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific artist, diplomat, devout Catholic, and learned humanist. His associates in Antwerp included Anthony van Dyck, Jan Brueghel and Jacob Jordaens, and he was favored by rulers in Italy, the Spanish Netherlands, Spain, France and England. We will look at a range of magnificent works by Rubens and his associates and delve into their associated histories and myths. Special reference will be made to those works held by American museums. Note: An optional field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts will follow…

Probably no government entity creates more controversy than the Federal Reserve. Some of this is certainly politics. But many of the battles involve deeply held feelings/beliefs on one side of an economic issue or another. The Fed, our central bank, is certainly not a quiet cave for nerds. It can have a dominant influence on economic outcomes. What the Fed decides matters, and no sense of how our country works is complete without some understanding of how it operates. Furthermore, the Fed itself has changed dramatically over the…