Betty Comden and Adolph Green are among the most successful lyricists and scriptwriters of American musicals and films. They were part of the generation of songwriters after Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, and Ira Gershwin, but are very much the equals of these more celebrated writers. Known and revered by some, they were unknown by many. This course will examine their work with composers Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, and others, along with some of their classic screenplays, including Singing in the Rain and The Band Wagon. Through…

In this course we will read fictional works by pioneers of postcolonial fiction in Africa. At the height of its power and reach at the end of the nineteenth century, the British Empire comprised some 372 million people spread over 11 million square miles. One hundred years later, the scope of Britain’s commonwealth and colonial power has been drastically reduced, but the impact of colonization on nations, peoples and cultures around the globe has been profound and irreversible. We will begin with Chinua Achebe’s great novel Things Fall…

Ernest Hemingway drew from his own war experiences in World War I when he crafted this remarkable story of an American ambulance driver serving on the Italian front and his love for a beautiful English nurse. The novel is marked by vivid depictions of the horrors of the battlefield but also by the heartrending vicissitudes of a passionate affair of the heart between his protagonists, Frederic and Catherine. This gripping novel captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. In…

This seminar course in biological evolution begins with a history of evolution from the Greek philosophers, moves through the modern synthesis (joining Darwinian evolution with genetics on a solid mathematical / statistical basis in the mid-20th century), and ends with current day concepts. We will explore the lives and work of naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace and important concepts of evolutionary theory, including natural selection, neutral theory, and nearly neutral theory. We will also cover the many strains of evidence supporting evolution – fossils, genetics and…

This six-session course will examine the image of Russia and Russians in American and other Western films from the time of the Russian Revolution to the present. We’ll begin with two anti-Communist Hollywood films from the years following the Russian Revolution through the outbreak of World War II: Dangerous Hours from 1919 and Ninotchka from 1939. From there we’ll move on to a major pivot in US-Soviet relations, the World War II alliance, with the pro-Soviet film Mission to Moscow from 1943. After that, we’ll see a return to…

Boston sculptor Anne Whitney proclaimed in 1892, “I do not want anything I have done put forward on the basis of its being the work of a woman.” In the middle of the 19th century, Boston art schools began to open their doors to women, who jumped at the chance to become artists. Whitney and a generation of women worked hard to have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. They refused to be valued as only women artists, and through advocacy and grit secured a spot at…

This course will be a book-by-book close reading of books 19 through 24 of the Iliad, the great epic of ancient Greece. Attributed to Homer, the Iliad was constructed by generations of bards orally retelling and commemorating in song a war fought in previous generations over the plains of Troy. The earliest work in ancient Greek, the Iliad was written down sometime around 750–730 BC. The epic tells the tale of the wrath of the Greeks’ greatest warrior, Achilles, whose withdrawal from the conflict changes the course of…

Five centuries ago at Pamplona a French cannonball felled a Spanish soldier-courtier. During a lengthy convalescence Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola would be transformed, dedicating his life to Christ. After a Holy Land pilgrimage and some street preaching, he pursued academics. At the University of Paris in 1534 he gathered six companions into a company bound by religious oaths which in 1540 received papal sanction as a new religious order. In a few short decades this Society of Jesus would spread throughout Catholic Europe and to India,…

Civil War history is a road well-traveled. But how did we get there? Where did it take us? Did we arrive at our planned destination or get lost along the way? Join me as we travel down four roads, exploring how this amazing odyssey transformed our nation. The Road to War: Why did we go to war against each other? Is it all the fault of Massachusetts? Or South Carolina? How about both? The Road to Freedom: Why did it take so long to free the enslaved? Was…

Poets, the magpies of the literary world, love to snatch bright and shiny things from their predecessors and claim them for their own. But does the resulting collection of trinkets justify this brazen robbery? Does it create something beautiful in its own right? Or is it just an open-and-shut case? These are the questions we will try to answer by looking at a selected history of poetic theft. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a text that all aspiring poets are destined to know. (And if you are going…

Join this in-person course to explore some of Boston’s neighborhoods and discover their treasures. We’ll talk with neighborhood “insiders” and visit historical societies, house museums, and libraries, while experiencing local history and architecture through presentations and on foot. Stops will include Charlestown, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, and Allston/Brighton. In addition, two special structures in the South End will feature rare tour opportunities: the South End Historical Society, which is headquartered in a fashionable Victorian residence, and the nearby League of Women for Community Service, home of the oldest Black…

This writing workshop is a chance for you to get out that unfinished memoir, the poem you’ve been working on, the op-ed essay, short story or novel from the kitchen drawer. Or to start something entirely new. You don’t have to be a pro! Just someone who loves to read and write. Each week we will engage in a constructive critique and discuss our work in a friendly and encouraging atmosphere. Progress on your project will be expected from week to week, so a level of commitment is…

Heart of Darkness is a controversial masterpiece. Conrad's novella shocked and offended some late Victorians by its brutally accurate depiction of European colonialism. Some 21st-century readers are also offended, not by the evils of imperialism, but by the story's challenges to political correctness in the modern academic world. Using the popular (fifth!) Norton Critical Edition, we will explore the ideology of imperialism and Conrad's own river journey to the middle of Africa. Then we will trace evolving interpretations from varied decades and cultures. And we won't forget Coppola's…