CVEC is offering fifteen courses for Spring, fourteen in person and one online via Zoom. This page contains (1) a summary listing of the title, instructor, time, and location of each course, (2) a full description of each course with a brief biography of the instructor, and (3) a description of any books or other materials that will be needed for the course.
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We invite you to register for one or more courses by using the online form in this website. IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU ARE NOT ENROLLED IN A COURSE UNTIL YOU RECEIVE AN EMAIL CONFIRMATION OF YOUR ENROLLMENT FROM CVEC. We recommend that you NOT purchase the course materials until you receive that confirmation. If you have not heard from CVEC one week before classes start, then please email Nicole Barnette at nbarnette@cvec.org to determine your status. Please review the “Registration Rules” document in this website for a detailed description of the rules for registration.
Daniel Sullivan is President Emeritus of St. Lawrence University and former president of Allegheny College. He is currently chair of the CVEC Curriculum Committee.
dsullivan@stlawu.edu
Overview: While revisiting and updating some topics covered in earlier versions, this course branches out into several pieces of new territory either omitted because of time constraints or under-appreciated because of insufficiently foreseen changes in the American higher education landscape. How are public, independent non-profit and for-profit colleges different from each other? Community colleges are now the first entry point for a large fraction of first-time college attendees. How is that working out?
American higher education institutions are also responding to at least six major disruptions that are posing dramatic challenges to their future: an imminent significant decline in the population of high school graduates, major new constraints on immigration and visas for foreign students, a failure on the part of the federal government in the management of its system for calculating students’ financial need, a decline in families’ perception of the value of a college education, challenges across the political spectrum regarding how colleges and universities handle free speech and academic freedom issues, and the election of a new American president determined to disrupt and restructure higher education. All who care about higher education in America must understand these better.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Classes will involve some presentations and guided discussion of readings made available to students through a course book mailed well ahead of the first class, for which there will be a separate fee of $18. Come prepared to share, opine, listen and think. A complete syllabus specifying the readings for each week (3-5 articles/chapters, 30-60 pages per week) will be emailed to enrolled students well before the first class.
Monday, March 24: The mission and performance of the American system of higher education is being criticized today to a degree unlike at any time in its history. To understand these current challenges, we must first know something about the origins of higher education in America. In his powerful, must-read book American Nations Colin Woodard shows how the United States is not a single nation, but 11-13 nations shaped by the different values and beliefs of first and later immigrant settlers, leading to very different regional cultures that have persisted to this day. Differences in beliefs about the importance of early, and then later, higher education—what should be taught, the extent that what should be taught should be influenced by religion, who should have access to higher education, who should pay for higher education—are baked into regional differences in this country and almost all of pre-college education and about 85% of higher education is funded and controlled by the states.
For an example, Woodard says: “The goal of the Deep Southern oligarchy has been consistent for over four centuries: to control and maintain a one-party state with a colonial-style economy based on large-scale agriculture and the extraction of primary resources by a compliant, poorly educated, low-wage workforce with as few labor, workplace safety, health care, and environmental regulations as possible.” p. 302
— Colin Woodard, American Nations, pp 1-19 plus quotes and maps. America’s Colonial and other early colleges and universities—16 pages.
Of course, 15% of higher education occurs in private, independent non-profit colleges and universities. It’s important, therefore, for us to understand the differences between public and private colleges and universities, all of which have state charters—how they are governed, from where they get their funding and therefore to whom they are beholden.
— In the coursebook see: Charter of St. Lawrence University; Articles of Incorporation, Grinnell College; and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees—4 pages.
But all colleges and universities also receive federal funding, primarily through the Pell Grant program, guaranteed student loans, and grants and contracts to perform research. What will the short and long-term impact of electing Trump to a second term be on higher education and America?
— In the coursebook see annual revenue by source for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities; Grinnell College, Carleton College, and St. Olaf College—3 pages.
Monday, March 31: For whom should higher education in America be intended and made available? Should members of sub-groups in America who have experienced discrimination that limited their access to higher education historically and today be given compensating preferential access and on-campus support? There remains much conflict about this, despite and possibly exacerbated by the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action programs, and the Trump administration is cranking the volume up dramatically. Why do the wealthiest colleges educate the fewest low-income students? Is this right? Are colleges and universities gates to opportunity, or do they solidify or even make existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities worse? Here are the readings:
— U. S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter, February 14, 2025. 4 pages
— Katanji Brown Jackson Affirmative Action Dissent, 29 pages. (Asking you to read just Jackson’s dissent since it includes the arguments and reasoning of the majority)
— David Leonhardt, “Why Does Duke Have So Few Low-Income Students?”, New York Times, Sept. 7, 2023. 12 pages
— Daniel F. Sullivan, “Merit and Access,” Inside Higher Ed, October 9, 2008. 5 pages
Monday, April 7: Nineteenth and twentieth century higher education was shaped regionally by the differences in our American nations and by the nature of the wider world at the time. What should the aims and objectives of American higher education be today? I begin by letting you know in two short pieces where I come from on this question and then share some well-argued different points of view to help us discuss it.
— Daniel F. Sullivan, “The Sustainable College,” Trusteeship, Association of Governing Boards, May/June, 2015. 6 pages
— Daniel F. Sullivan, “Cliffs Notes for Credit”, Inside Higher Ed, August 31, 2015. 6 pages
— Cathrael Kazin, Guest Column in The Chautauqua Daily, July 30, 2018. (She spoke at Chautauqua that summer.) Kazin is managing partner of Volta Learning Group, which “designs learning and credentialing strategies for evolving industries.” While accepting much of what I argued the goals and objectives of higher education should be, Kazin is highly critical of the way colleges and universities function. 3 pages
— Michael D. Smith, “The Public is Giving Up on Higher Ed: Our Current System Isn’t Working for Society. Digital Alternatives Can Change That,” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 5, 2023. Smith argues that higher education’s mission is “creating opportunities for as many students as possible to discover and develop their unique talents, so that they can use those talents to make a difference in the world.” What do you think? 4 pages
Monday, April 14: In these politically polarized times hardly a week goes by without major news coverage of one or more free speech/academic freedom controversies on college or university campuses. Sometimes the issue is the seeming mistreatment of a controversial speaker. Other times it is about students believing that their opinions and arguments are dismissed by conservative, or more often these days, liberal professors out of hand, resulting in evaluations of their work that are lower than they believe should be the case. We will look at last year’s dispute at Hamline University as a case study.
As background, here is what the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” What is the difference between free speech and academic freedom?
— American Association of University Professors, “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.” Pages 13-16. This gives the basic rationale for academic freedom.
— Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), “Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility: A Statement from the Board of Directors,” 2006. This document, produced while Dan was on the AAC&U Board of Directors, considers academic freedom in the context of the educational responsibilities institutions, faculty and students have in the teaching and learning process. 7 pages
— University of Chicago “Report on the Committee on Freedom of Expression.” 3 pages
— “Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry (Sept. 11, 2023) 6 pages
— Carleton College Statement on Academic Freedom; St. Olaf College faculty handbook on academic freedom and statement on faculty ethics; Minnesota State Colleges and Universities faculty union contract statement on academic freedom. 3 pages
— Ryan Quinn, “Promoting Academic Freedom, from UChicago to . . . Hamline?”, Inside Higher Education, October 9, 2023. 5 pages
— Abdulrahman Bindamnan, “As a Muslim, I Defend Freedom of Religion and of Speech. So What Happened at Hamline University?”, Heterodox: The Blog, March 9, 2023. 3 pages
— Robert Post, “The Unfortunate Consequences of a Misguided Free Speech Principle”, Journal of Free Speech Law, 2024. 19 pages
Monday, April 21: How well are colleges and universities achieving the student and societal outcomes America expects of them? America has been pretty good at enabling students to enter college—how well do we do in facilitating students’ completion of college? And what about student learning? Are students being transformed by their college education in the ways our goals and objectives expect?
— Daniel F. Sullivan and Greg Perfetto, “Interim Report on Preliminary Analysis of the Graduation Rates of All 2012-14 Traditional Age New York High School Graduates Who Took the SAT and/or PSAT and Who Attended a Four-Year College in Any State.” (with some additional results from a similar study in Minnesota) 10 pages
— Grandpa to Caitlin, Spring 2014. 10 pages
— Carol Geary Schneider and Daniel F. Sullivan, In “What About Learning?” Inside Higher Ed, December 19, 2014, Carol Geary Schneider and Daniel F. Sullivan present the argument for taking the assessment of what students actually learn in college seriously. 4 pages
— Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, “Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 18, 2011. In their book—Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses—Arum and Roksa examined longitudinal data on 2,322 students enrolled across a diverse range of campuses. They concluded that for a “large proportion” of students in their study “the gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication are either exceedingly small or nonexistent” over four years of college. 4 pages
Monday, April 28: One of the higher education issues the press and other media have never been able to explain to the American public well is what’s really going on with college costs. That’s because it’s complicated, and much of it is counter-intuitive—things don’t operate in the same way they do with the purchase and sale of normal goods and services. But there is a related but different question that needs answering as well: why has college become so much less affordable for so many?
Community colleges are seen as lower-cost entry points to an equivalent four-year degree. What do the data say? Low-income students—especially students of color—including students of high ability and high school performance, are differentially urged to begin a four-year degree at a community college and then transfer. How does that work out for them, and for America? In this session we’ll begin to unpack these questions, which are at the heart of many of our current conflicts. Here are the readings for this class:
— Gordon C. Winston, “Why Can’t a College Be More Like a Firm?” Change, September-October, 1997, 31-38. 8 pages
— Daniel F. Sullivan, “The Business Model is Broken: Some Thoughts for Private College and University Leaders,” March 22, 2012. (This paper summarizes the main ideas from Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman’s path-breaking 2011 book Why Does College Cost So Much? and adds analysis and commentary by Dan.) 12 pages
— David H. Feldman and Richard M. Romano, “Drivers of Community College Costs and Prices,” Change, May/June 2019, 21-27. 7 pages
— Paul Tough, “Americans are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault is That?”, New York Times, Sept. 5, 2023. 12 pages
Monday, May 5: One of the most important underrated and poorly understood—especially by low-income students—things that can happen to students by attending college, in addition to what they learn and how well they develop important skills, is acquisition of social capital—knowing where the opportunities are, who controls access to them, how to meet those who control the opportunities through connections. Chetty et al. show that when low-income students manage to develop connections in college that lead to opportunities, they are significantly more likely to experience upward socio-economic mobility later in life. But colleges and universities differ greatly in the degree to which low-income students gain access to connections (Chetty et al. have classified all American four- and two-year colleges on the extent to which they facilitate cross-socio-economic status friendships). What explains those differences, and how can colleges and universities do better at facilitating post-higher education success among low-income students? We’ll explore that in class this week.
— Summary of Main Conclusions of Social Capital I and Social Capital II, By Raj Chetti et al, in Nature, Aug. 5, 2022. 4 pages
— Daniel F. Sullivan, “Social Capital, A Chautauqua Prototype”. 4 pages
— Examples of how colleges and universities differ in economic connectedness and friending bias. 5 pages
Monday, May 12: As was the case from 1978 through the mid-1990’s, we are about to see a substantial decline in the U. S. traditional age college-going population. Will there soon be a massive shake-out in American higher education resulting in large numbers of college closings and mergers? What might a sustainable, effective, American system of higher education conceived and organized to prepare students for the realities of our and their future look like? How could it come into being?
— Readings: Data from Daniel Sullivan and Michael Zuckert, “Demography and the Carleton Applicant Pool,” January 1979, Figure 1: U.S. Population of 18-year olds, and Figures 2 and 5, Projected Number of Applications; actual Carleton applicant pool size, 1970-2001. These data give context for what’s ahead by showing the huge decline in high school graduates in America from 1980 through the late 1990’s. 4 pages
— Nathan D. Grawe, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), Chapter 6, 68-73. This reading shows what’s ahead. 6 pages
— Chapters 1 (The Case for Change, 31 pages) and 7 (The Path to Change, 26 pages) of a recently published beautifully written, evidence and experience-based critique of American higher education by Brian Rosenberg entitled Whatever It is I’m Against It. Brian is President Emeritus of Macalester College. He makes a powerful argument for the need to change. Does he give us any hope?
Tom Drucker retired in 2021 and moved to Northfield after decades of teaching mathematics, computer science, philosophy and the history of science and mathematics, most recently at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater. He has taught multiple CVEC courses and currently serves on the CVEC Board. druckert@uww.edu
Overview: Before buying into the universal applicability of artificial intelligence, it is worth considering the path that took us to its ubiquity. This class is intended to trace the way in which the formalization of reasoning has been transformed into a means for humans to avoid thinking. The narrative starts with Plato and Aristotle and stays relatively unmathematical until the early nineteenth century. Then the two B’s (Charles Babbage and George Boole) start the transformation that gathers steam with improvements in technology. While there are theoretical limitations established in the twentieth century, applications abound. We shall conclude by looking at the extent to which some of the claims loosely made for the prospects of AI do not stand up to detailed examination.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: The history of logic (the term often used for the discipline that formalizes reasoning correctly) takes us back to Plato and Aristotle, who already had differences of opinion about how we should proceed. The period of mediaeval and Renaissance logic did not do so much for the formalization but we’ll look at some of the ways it was used. No knowledge of Latin is required to appreciate the mnemonics used for the correct forms of the syllogism.
One of the crucial steps toward artificial intelligence was the association of mathematics with logic, often connected with the work of George Boole in the early nineteenth century. What leads to the use of the word ‘artificial’ is the role that computers could be brought to play in carrying out the evaluation of a logical argument. The computer was also a product of the early nineteenth century (in the work of Charles Babbage) but it lay fallow for more than a century. By the middle of the twentieth century, Gödel suggested limitations on what machines might be able to accomplish. The work of Alan Turing in the 1930’s and 1940’s promoted ideas about what computers could do and also what they could not.
After Turing’s untimely death in 1954, the technical development of computers continued apace, so the kind of question that Gödel and Turing had raised could not be ignored. The current wave of enthusiasm for artificial intelligence is based on demonstrated success but does not see an end to its usefulness. We shall step back from the current blaze and see how even some of the issues from Plato are suggestive of what artificial intelligence cannot do.
Almost all readings for the course—about 50 pages per class—will be made available in a coursebook that will be mailed to students before the course begins. There will be a separate charge of $21 beyond tuition to cover the cost of printing and mailing. For Graham Priest’s Logic: A Very Short Introduction, only one chapter is specifically assigned, but the book is a valuable reference resource. It is available via bookfinder.com for $7 or less used. Readings for the earlier part of the course will be from William and Martha Kneale’s The Development of Logic, a classic text that has not been replaced. The development of the computer in conjunction with logic is dealt with in Martin Davis’s Engines of Logic), while the class will also read Turing’s paper ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ from 1950. Some debunking of artificial intelligence will be found in AI Snake Oil by Narayanan and Kapoor (published in 2024).
Week 1: What is logic? Plato and Aristotle. Readings: Priest, ch. 1; Kneale and Kneale, chs. I, II.1, and II.6.
Week 2: Mediaeval and Renaissance logic (together with some further background). Kneale and Kneale, ch. IV.3.
Week 3: Leibniz (early machines and a break from two thousand years of tradition). Kneale and Kneale, chs. V.2-3.
Week 4: Boole and Babbage (with perhaps a graphic novel detour to Ada Lovelace). Kneale and Kneale, ch. VI.3; Davis, chs. 2 and 7.
Week 5: Logic and reasoning from Frege to Bertrand Russell (and a touch of Lewis Carroll).
Kneale and Kneale, chs. VII.1, VIII.4, and XI.2
Week 6: Gödel and Turing. Davis, ch. 6; Turing.
Week 7: The computer catches up. Davis, chs. 8-9.
Week 8: AI—Is there a limit? Narayanan and Kapoor, ch. 8.
David Nitz was a faculty member in physics at St. Olaf College from 1979 to 2019. Among the courses he taught in the general education curriculum were astronomy and musical acoustics. His research included the measurement of optical properties of atoms having applications in astrophysics. In his free time he enjoys cycling, cross-country skiing, bread-baking, music, and canoeing/star gazing in the Boundary Waters. nitz@stolaf.edu
Overview: This course will explore two topics in astronomy: (1) naked eye astronomy and (2) the nature of stars. Part 1 (weeks 1-6) will cover looking at the sky with the unaided eye – sun, moon, stars, and planets – and addressing how what we observe changes over daily, weekly, and seasonal time scales. In Part 2 (weeks 7-8) we will explore the outlines of the scientific detective story that begins with the collection of light with a telescope and ultimately leads to an understanding of the composition and life cycle of stars and the search for planets beyond our solar system.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Class members will learn to use the sky simulation software Stellarium and read selections from a free, online college-level introductory textbook (OpenStax Astronomy) in conjunction with weekly course topics. The course will be lecture-based but include some group discussion coupled with in-class activities. We will make use of quantitative reasoning associated with concepts of elementary geometry, algebra, and physics. Prior experience with these would be helpful but is not a requirement for the course. I will provide electronic copies of class notes on a weekly basis. If conditions permit, we will arrange an optional evening session to do some star gazing with the aid of a telescope.
The sky simulation software is available at https://stellarium-web.org.
The online textbook is available at https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy.
The planned schedule of weekly topics is as follows; related sections of the online text are indicated in parentheses (and note that we won’t be following the sequence of the text).
Part I. Naked Eye Astronomy
Week 1. Getting Oriented to the Sky: The Celestial Sphere and its apparent motions [2.1, 4.1]; Introduction to Stellarium-web.
Week 2. Finding one’s way around the sky: The brightest stars and their constellations [appendices J and L]; binoculars and telescopes for star gazing [6.1].
Week 3. The Earth-Sun system: Achievements of early astronomers (e.g., size of the earth, distance to moon and sun); path of the sun in the sky; seasonal variations of sunrise/transit/sunset/daylight [2.2, 4.2].
Week 4. Earth-Sun System, continued: the solar analemma; subtleties of time-keeping and calendar-making [4.3,4.4].
Week 5. (i) The earth-moon system: the lunar orbit; phases and eclipses [4.5, 4.7]; (ii) Motion of the planets on the celestial sphere: prograde and retrograde motions [2.2]; disk of the solar system
Week 6. Modeling Planetary Motion: Ptolemy and Copernicus; Kepler, Galileo, Newton and the heliocentric solar system [2.4, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3].
Part II. Stellar Astronomy
Week 7. Interpreting Starlight: Properties of light and thermal radiation; measurable properties of stars; the search for exo-planets [5.1 – 5.3, 17.1 – 17.4, 18.1 – 18.4, 19.2 – 19.3, 21.4].
Week 8. Life Cycle of Stars: The sun – an ordinary star; formation of stars; stellar lifetimes and end-of-life pathways [Chapters 21-23].
Susan Jaret McKinstry, Helen F. Lewis Professor at Carleton College, teaches and writes on 19th c British novels and poetry, Jane Austen, narrative theory, journalism, and creative writing. Her poetry appears in Plain Songs I & II, The Journal of General Internal Medicine, Crosswinds, Willows Wept Review, Rootstalk, Orchards Poetry Journal, and the Red Wing Poet Artist Collaboration; her chapbook, Tumblehome (fall 2024) is set in western Ireland, Galway, and Northfield, Minnesota. sjaret@carleton.edu
Overview: “What is all this about Jane Austen? What is there in her? What is it all about?” a puzzled Joseph Conrad asked H. G. Wells in 1901. In 1924, Virginia Woolf wrote, “Of all the great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness.” After more than two centuries, with only six completed novels written between 1811 and 1817, Jane Austen remains one of the world’s most widely read and adapted authors. Why? Answering that question is our goal: we will study Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion, to understand Austen’s plots and characters, her radical narrative voice, her perceptive use of novelistic form and convention, and her skill at raising urgent cultural issues in the delicate guise of comedy of manners.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Persuasion is a short, beautifully constructed two volume novel that raises questions about family, gender roles, self, and nation. For each session, come to class having read and wondered about the reading. In discussion-based class sessions, we will explore Austen’s social and literary context, and examine her innovative craft through close reading of precise passages. For the final class session, we’ll consider how film adaptations translate Austen’s words to the screen, and debate what Austen’s posthumous 1817 novel means to us now.
Jane Austen’s Persuasion is readily available in physical or digital (ebook) versions, and any edition is fine as long as it is not shortened. If you want to purchase a physical copy, I recommend the Oxford World Classics edition, available to order at Content Books for $6 and new or used on Addall.com, Amazon, and other sites. Persuasion is available to borrow at Northfield Public Library and both college libraries. I will share .pdf versions of Austen’s letters and other supplementary materials.
Film: There are several wildly different film adaptations of Persuasion; in class, we’ll discuss Roger Mitchell’s 1995 Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hines, and I’ll show selected scenes from other versions to consider the challenges of adaptation. The DVD of Mitchell’s film is available to borrow at the Northfield Public Library and the Selco system, as well as on streaming services (Amazon rental about $4). Please don’t watch any film versions before finishing the novel!
Week 1: Read Volume 1, chapters 1-6.
Week 2: Read Volume 1, chapters 7-12.
Week 3: Read Volume 2, chapters 1-12.
Week 4: Watch the 1995 film adaptation of Persuasion, directed by Roger Mitchell.
Raymond De Vries is Professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. From 2006 to 2021 he was a member of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, with appointments in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Sociology. Before moving to Michigan, he was a member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at St. Olaf College (1988-2005). rdevries@med.umich.edu
Overview: We in the baby boomer generation (and those who are baby boomer adjacent) are known for “doing our own thing.” When it comes to retirement, we are no different. In 1982 (the year my father turned 65 and retired), three million of those 65 and older were still working. In 2021, the year I “retired,” that number was 11 million, and in 2024 that number swelled to nearly 12 million. Why do we retire? And why do some of us choose to stay in the workforce? The easy and oft-cited answer is, “it’s the money!” But another trend among us baby boomers belies that response: the growing number of people who retire – with sufficient funds – but then choose to go back to work. Why is that so? That’s what we will examine in this course.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Materials for the course will be provided by email attachments (or by free hard copy,) and links to short videos. The readings will be short and will include both descriptions of population trends in retirement and personal accounts of, and reflections on, being retired. This is a discussion-oriented course, but I reserve the right to present some data in class (after all, I am a sociologist). Weekly emails will offer thought-provoking questions, based on the assigned material, to guide class conversation.
Week 1: Why do we retire? A brief history of retirement. To better understand this thing called retirement, we will look at the history of retirement – when (why and how) did people begin to step away from work in the later years of their lives, and how has retirement life evolved over time?
Week 2: What makes work meaningful? For better or worse, our experience of retirement is shaped by how we view work. Readings and class discussion in week two will center on the things that give (gave) our work meaning and how retiring from that work affects how we feel about the tasks that fill our day. Can we define what we do as retirees as “work”? How is it different (better? worse?) from the work we did before retirement?
Week 3: Meaning making in retirement. In week three we will explore how we make meaning in retirement. We will look at a number of narratives of retirement – “successful,” “failed,” and otherwise — and consider how these accounts define the different ways retired people find satisfaction (or not) in their years of retirement.
Week 4: Retirement as vocation: is retirement a calling? What would it take to see retirement as a calling? Can/should retirement be seen as “productive”? Should that even be a way of thinking about our retirement? We will consider the literature on vocation and calling and reflect on the ways being retired can be seen as: an extension of our (paid) working lives, a new way of finding meaning in work, or simply well-earned leisure after years of toil.
Joel Weisberg is Stark Professor of Physics and Astronomy and the Natural Sciences, Emeritus, at Carleton College. He taught astronomy, cosmology, physics, and science and society courses at Carleton for 35 years, after a similar three-year stint at Princeton. He and his students used radio telescopes across the world to study pulsars, the interstellar medium, and general relativity. He has continued various teaching and research activities since retiring almost six years ago. jweisber@carleton.edu
Overview: Cosmology is the investigation of the past, present, and future history of the universe and of its general nature. Virtually all cultures throughout history have attempted to wrestle with cosmological questions, such as the origin of the universe. In the last hundred years, however, we have managed to perform key observations of the nature of the universe. Now a cosmology must not conflict with these observations if it is to be considered scientifically viable. This development marks a watershed moment, which can be called the era of Modern Scientific Cosmology.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Students are asked to purchase Cosmology: The Science of the Universe, 2nd edition, by Edward Harrison. (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Available as paperback (reprinted 2022, $44.99 new); or as hardcover, used, online at bookfinder.com for $20 to $50. Do not purchase the first edition! Although many cosmology books for intelligent laypeople have been published since Harrison’s 2nd edition, and although the field is fast-moving, I have not been able to find a newer one that is as accessible and thought-provoking. Students will also read some Scientific American-level articles to cover cosmological advances made since the Harrison 2nd edition’s original (2000) publication. These will be sent online to class members as pdf’s, so as to not accrue printing costs. I estimate ~6 articles × ~ 6 pages/article ≈ 36 pages.
Please read the following selections before class so that we can meaningfully discuss them in class. You might find it useful to take notes as you read, in order to inform your in-class discussion. Also, as you read, please jot down at least one question to send to the instructor by noon of the class day. This gives him (barely) enough time to organize your questions logically and to choose those most useful to address in class.
Note: Each chapter concludes with a “Reflections” section, which is optional. These Reflections frequently consist of very thought-provoking and fascinating questions; though their level varies widely. We will discuss some of them in class, and of course you are free to look at them beforehand if you wish!
[Note for the listing below: The meaning of fractional pages is as follows. Harrison divides each page into two columns, so 117.3 implies 0.3 (or 30%) of page 117, which means a little over halfway down the first column (and 117.6 means a little past the start of the second column).]
Week 1:
— Chapter 1: “What is Cosmology?” (8 pages)
— Chapter 4: “Cosmology after Newton and before Einstein” (15 pages)
Week 2:
— Chapter 5: “Stars” (18 pages)
— Chapter 6 through page 117.3 (a little more on stars) (4 pages)
Week 3:
— Finish Chapter 6: Normal and Active Galaxies (12 pages)
— Chapter 7: “Location and the Cosmic Center” (8 pages) (Go lightly on p.136.8-137.1 and 137.6-138.8 (Cosmic Background Radiation), as we will cover it much more extensively in Week 7.)
— Chapter 8 through page 149.6: Containment (3 pages)
Week 4:
— Finish Chapter 8: “Containment and the Cosmic Edge” (13 pages)
— Chapter 9: “Space & Time” (11 pages)
Week 5:
— Chapter 10: “Curved Space” through page 194.3 and Fig. 10.8 (5 pages)
— Chapter 11: “Special Relativity” through page 209.8 (4 pages)
— Chapter 12: General relativity and curved space, pages 224.5-225.2 and Fig 12.7 (1 page)
— Chapter 14: “Expansion of the Universe” through page 282.55 (13 pages) (The “location principle” of p.279.7 was first defined on p.134.5.) Skip the equations in Chapt. 14 except Eqs. 14.6 and 9, but please wrestle hard with the material. (See more on Chapt. 14 below.)
— Scientific American: “Misconceptions about the Big Bang” (pdf) (10 pages)
Week 6:
— Chapter 14: “Expansion of the Universe” pp.285.9 – 286.6 and Figs. 14.18 – 14.22 on pp. 290 – 291 (2 pages)
— Chapter 18: “The Many Universes” through p.355.8 and 357.3-357.6, then Figs. 18.3, .4, .5, .10, .12, .13 (5 pages)
— American Scientist: “Tearing Apart the Universe [with Dark Energy]” (pdf) (7 pages)
Week 7:
— Chapter 19: “Observational Cosmology” through page 391.5 except right half of p. 389. Then review p.136.8-137.1, and 137.6-138.8 (without the math.) (4 pages)
— Jump to pp. 394.6-395.8 and figs. 19.5 and 19.7-19.9 of Chapter 19. (1 page)
— American Scientist: “The Dark Side of the Universe” (pdf) (8 pages)
— Chapter 20: “The Early Universe” through page 415.8 (3 pages)
Week 8:
— Black Holes: First, notes from Joel; then various readings from Chapter 13 (5 pages)
— Planets beyond the Solar System; life beyond Earth: First, Harrison Chapter 26, “Life in the Universe”: p. 535.0-540.7; then other recent external readings (15 pages)
Rod Christensen, MD is a retired family physician who practiced in Northfield for 25 years before finishing his career in leadership positions with Allina Health. He has taught three previous courses in CVEC and is a member of the CVEC Board of Directors. chris719@charter.net
Overview: All of us have some experience with dementia, and all of us have questions. In this course, we will address those questions together. We will cover the basic science of the various types of dementia, and how they are diagnosed, treated and managed. We will also consider the common changes that happen to all of us as we age, and how we distinguish those from dementia. We will study what is known about preventing dementia. And we will learn about how care is provided both in the US and around the world.
In the second part of each session we”ll discuss how dementia affects caregivers, friends and loved ones, and why it is often so difficult to respond effectively. While this course is not designed as a support group, we will have time to share our own stories, experiences, and questions, especially as they pertain to the week’s topics. We all have much to learn about dementia, including from one another.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: The first part of each session will be mainly in lecture format, but with plenty of time for questions. In the second part of each session, we will discuss the book Travelers to Unimaginable Lands by Dasha Kiper. She uses patient/caregiver stories and related research to demonstrate how our normal brains’ functions and psychology can make dealing with dementia in others so challenging, but also often so meaningful. The book is available at Content with a group discount, or through bookfinder.com, new for $20 or less, used for $15 or less. Expect to read 20 – 35 pages each week, along with optional supplemental readings as desired.
Week 1: What is dementia? What isn’t dementia? What overlaps or coincides? How does memory work? Discussion of Kiper: Foreword and Preface, pp. vii – xxxii.
Week 2: What are the various types of dementia? How are they different? What changes does dementia cause? What are the early clues? Discussion of Kiper: Chapter 1, pp. 3 – 21.
Week 3: How common is dementia, by age, gender, and geography? How is dementia diagnosed? Is screening helpful? Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 22 – 55.
Week 4: What is the natural history of dementia? What pharmaceutical treatments are available, and how well do they work? Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 4 and 5, pp. 56 – 88.
Week 5: What supportive strategies are available? How is care provided in the US and around the world? Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 6 and 7, pp. 89 – 112.
Week 6: What are the risk factors for dementia (genetic, environmental, lifestyle)? How can the risk of dementia be reduced? Discussion of Kiper: Chapter 8, pp. 113 – 131.
Week 7: What ethical issues arise in dementia care? Are autonomy and personality preserved in dementia? Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 9 and 10, pp. 132 – 158.
Week 8: How is dementia depicted in the arts? Discussion of Kiper: Chapter 11 and Epilogue, pp. 159 – 185. Summary and review.
Optional Supplemental Reading and Film:
Much information is available online. The National Institute of Aging is a good place to start, along with the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimers.gov, the Dementia Society of America, and the Minnesota Department of Health.
“Resources for Caregivers” in Travelers to Unimaginable Lands includes many recommendations.
Staying Sharp: 9 Keys for a Youthful Brain through Modern Science and Ageless Wisdom, by Henry Emmons and David Alter. The authors (Henry lives in Northfield) describe lifestyle measures that might help prevent dementia, as well as psychological strategies to enhance life as we age. Available at Content with a group discount from $19 or from bookfinder.com new for $17, used for $12 or less.
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. The New Yorker cartoonist has written a graphic memoir about her complicated relationship with her parents as they decline into very old age and dementia. It is brutally honest, but quite moving. $19 at Content.
The Bear Came over the Mountain, by Alice Munro, is a short story in her book, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. It is available at Content for $18 or may be ordered, and can be obtained free online. In it, a husband is confronted with surprising ethical dilemmas as he tries to support his wife in her dementia.
Still Alice, a novel by Lisa Genova, is available on order from Content at $19, or from bookfinder.com, new for $19 or less, used for $12 or less. The film, for which Julianne Moore won the Academy Award for Best Actress, is available on Netflix. The story tells of a psychology professor’s efforts to proactively manage her early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
The Great Lillian Hall is a 2024 film directed by Michael Cristofer, starring Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates. Lillian Hall is a famed Broadway actress struggling due to declining cognition and denial. It is currently streaming on Max.
King Lear, by William Shakespeare, is widely available. Consider watching the TV movie (a shorter version with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson) on Amazon Prime. It is held by some that Lear may have had Lewy body dementia.
Peter Bailey is Piskor professor of English emeritus at St. Lawrence University. His teaching and writing focus on literary and film criticism. For CVEC he has taught courses on the films of Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Woody Allen, the songwriting of Paul Simon, and New York Cinematic Stories.
pbailey@stlawu.edu
Overview: In Martin Scorsese’s dark remake of Cape Fear, Robert De Niro’s Max Cady tells Danielle Bowden, “Every man carries a circle of hell around his head like a halo. Every man has—your daddy, too—every man has to go through hell to reach his paradise.” Scorsese II allows us to watch and discuss nine protagonists–and one great film director–“going through hell to reach his paradise.” Of the course films, only Casino and Killers of the Flower Moon were unqualified critical and popular successes. The other seven are equally worthy of attention for their brilliant cinematic moments but also for their instrumentality in Scorsese’s making of the two deeply spiritual films he committed his career to producing: The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence. Witnessing Scorsese attempting to achieve his cinematic paradise in those films, as he does in Killers of the Flower Moon, is a drama as compelling as any Scorsese picture.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: We will discuss one film each week (except for two in week 3), beginning with the sympathetic, highly autobiographical portrait of adolescent J.R.’s first love experience in Who’s that Knockin’ at My Door and ending with the deranged love of the foulest Scorsese blackguard since Bill the Butcher, Ernest Burkhart of Killers of the Flower Moon, progenitor of his own circle of hell. Before each class I’ll distribute handouts about each film, providing historical context, production details, excerpts from reviews and biographical background on Scorsese’s filmmaking challenges and tribulations. These documents will inform but not limit our discussions, which will seek to clarify the dramatic arcs of his best films while illuminating the elements that impede the effectiveness of some of the others. All films are available on Amazon Prime for roughly $3.99 each.
Week 1: Who’s That Knockin’ at My Door?
Week 2: New York, New York
Week 3: The King of Comedy/After Hours
Week 4: The Last Temptation of Christ
Week 5: Cape Fear
Week 6: Casino
Week 7: Silence
Week 8: Killers of the Flower Moon
L. DeAne Lagerquist is Professor Emerita of Religion at St. Olaf College. She also taught in the American Conversations program and abroad. Her courses took up American religion and culture, global Lutheranism, sacred space in Greece & Turkey, and Bible and visual art.
l.deanelagerquist@gmail.com
Overview: The state of (American) democracy and role of (Christian) religion in it are frequent topics for reporting, debate, lament, and prediction, not only on every sort and stripe of media but also in person-to-person encounters. Our conversation is guided by sociologist Philip Gorski’s investigation of civil religion in American Covenant. With him we will explore three narratives Americans have told about ourselves in our pursuit of “a vision that can root, motivate, and sustain a transgenerational political project such as American democracy.” Gorski engages the religious and secular philosophical resources utilized by proponents of civil religion and two alternatives that he names religious nationalism and radical secularism. He argues in favor of a dynamic recovery of the ideals and practices of civil religion. We will supplement his historical account with primary sources and reference to other contemporary commentary.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Philip Gorski’s argument is premised upon his view that a promise to be a nation of both unity and diversity is foundational to the American experiment. This course depends upon participants’ willingness to engage with him and each other in ongoing debates about how to fulfill that promise and upon their commitment to reading carefully, thinking deeply, and discussing openly. As Gorski’s subtitle (A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present) indicates, our exploration of debates about civil religion and alternative traditions is organized chronologically. It is grounded in the ideas of thinkers such as James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Addams, and W.E.B. Dubois. Quoting Langston Hughes’ plea, “Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be…” Gorski concludes with proposals for recovery of “the dream of a righteous republic.” We too will have our eyes on that present purpose.
Each week’s session will focus on a section (approximately 30 pages) of American Covenant, available through bookfinder.com in paperback new for $26 or less, used $12 or less (also available as an e-book). I suggest the paperback edition which includes a new preface that directly addresses Donald J. Trump’s first administration. In advance of each session I will provide, by email, questions to guide reading. In addition, most weeks I will also suggest, via links or PDFs, a relevant primary source and/or contemporary commentary. This will be listed as optional but will be part of our conversation. Class sessions are intended to be largely discussion of readings, both for clarification of content and Gorski’s argument and in reaction to those.
Week 1: What is a tradition? What are ours? Setting up the conversation by introducing ourselves and Gorski’s project. Reading: American Covenant (hereafter AC) Preface to the Paperback Edition through Chapter 1, “The Civil Religious Tradition and Its Rivals.” (pp.vii-36) In these sections Gorski introduces his questions, approach, notion of tradition, and criteria of evaluation.
Optional:
— Listen to the Throughline podcast, “A History of Christian Nationalism.” This (51 minute) episode considers the “complicated relationship between Christianity and the United States” and helps set the context for our discussions this spring.
— Robert Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus, (Winter, 1967), Vol. 96, No. 1, pp. 1-21. This is a key article in the scholarship of civil religion, by Gorski’s teacher. He and others refer to it frequently. However, since the Gorski reading for this week is lengthy, you may want to read it later.
Week 2: Reading: AC, Chapter 2, “The Hebraic Moment: The New England Puritans.” (pp. 37-59)
Optional:
— John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity.”
Week 3: Reading: AC, Chapter 3, “Hebraic Republicanism: The American Revolution.” (pp. 60-82)
Optional:
— James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments.
Week 4: Reading: AC, Chapter 4, “Democratic Republicanism: The Civil War.” (pp. 83-108)
Optional:
— Frederick Douglass, “What to the Negro is the Fourth of July?”
— Maybe …. “Declaration of Sentiments” from Seneca Falls woman’s rights convention of 1848.
Week 5: Reading: AC, Chapter 5: The Progressive Era: Empire and the Republic.” (pp. 109-142)
Optional:
— Maybe . . . excerpt from H. Richard Niebuhr’s The Kingdom of God in America (1938)
— TBD something by Jane Addams
Week 6: Reading: AC, Chapter 6: The Post-World War II Period: Jew, Protestant, Catholic.” (pp. 143-172)
Optional:
— Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream.” Note links to an audio recording and to other “canonical” documents.
— If you did not read it before, you might now read Robert Bellah’s 1967 article listed for week one.
— Maybe . . . excerpts from Martin E. Marty’s Righteous Empire (1976) or Will Herberg’s Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1960)
Week 7: Reading: AC, Chapter 7: From Reagan to Obama: Tradition Corrupted and (Almost) Recovered.” (pp. 173-201)
Optional:
— Maybe Obama’ “race” speech? and/or Reagan on the City on a Hill
— Maybe Jermaine M. McDonald, “A Fourth Time of Trial: Towards an Implicit and Inclusive American Civil Religion.” Implicit Religion: Journal for the Critical Study of Religion. Vol. 16, No. 1 (2013)
Week 8: Reading: AC, Chapter 8, “The Civil Religion: Critics and Allies” and Conclusion, “The Righteous Empire.” (pp. 202-234)
Paul Zunkel is a former (2018-2023) Assistant Professor of Earth Science and former (2019-2023) Director of the Aber Geospatial Analysis Laboratory at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas. His research and teaching focuses on two main areas: environmental change through time and the human-environmental interactions of severe weather phenomena on human populations. Paul is currently a GIS Technician in the Rice County Assessor’s Office. Paul.Zunkel@RiceCountyMN.gov
Overview: This course is an introduction to the meteorological phenomena relating to blizzards, ice storms, thunderstorms, lightning, hail, flash floods, tornadoes, and El Niño, La Niña, & the Southern Oscillation. Emphasis will be placed on weather that affects Minnesota. Particular attention will be given to each weather phenomenon, its causes, its hazards, and what should be done to avoid and survive the hazard.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Every week during the course students will study and examine a unique meteorological phenomenon that impacts the state of Minnesota. Each class session will be divided into two portions. The first portion of class will be spent introducing the specific phenomenon, learning the conditions necessary for its formation, understanding its conceptual nature and movement, and recognizing the steps necessary to stay safe during it. In the second portion of class students will analyze and review a specific, historical case-study of the phenomenon in question.
Short readings will be assigned almost every week. These readings will be available in PDF formatted files and/or via specifically identified websites. PDF files will be available to students before the start of the course. A complete syllabus specifying the weekly readings will be emailed to enrolled students prior to the first day of class.
By the end of the course, students will have learned what environments are most conducive to different forms of severe weather formation, be able to recognize radar patterns indicating a potential for severe weather occurrence, discriminate the atmospheric conditions favorable for severe weather development, describe the effects that El Niño/Southern Oscillation have on Minnesota and global weather patterns, and list the steps necessary to stay safe during these events.
No prior background in Atmospheric Science, Meteorology, Climatology, and/or Geography is required to attend this course.
Week 1: Introductions. Extratropical Cyclones.
– Extratropical cyclone of October 26-27, 2010.
Week 2: Blizzards & Cold Waves.
– The Halloween Blizzard of 1991.
– NTSB report AAR-73-10 (Cessna 182 (N70586)).
Week 3: Thunderstorms.
– Rice County thunderstorms on September 20th, 2018.
Week 4: Downbursts & Floods.
– The Great Flood of 1993.
Week 5: Lightning & Hail.
– May 15th, 1998 hailstorm.
– The ‘Peony Pummeler’ hailstorm on June 11th, 2017.
Week 6: Tornadoes.
– Minnesota storm chasing with Dr. Paul Zunkel.
Week 7: Droughts & Heatwaves.
– The drought of 1988.
Week 8: El Niño, La Niña, & Southern Oscillation.
– Future climate changes and their impacts on Minnesota.
Tim Madigan retired after 35 years in the city management profession in five Minnesota cities, including Northfield and Faribault. He started his professional career as a high school history teacher. Tim also served as an adjunct faculty member at Minnesota State University Mankato. Most recently he has been making presentations for the Celtic Junction Arts Center in St. Paul on Irish History. tmadigan55@hotmail.com
“I Have a Dream.” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
Overview: The 1960s in America was a time of change, conflict and controversy, as well as a historic moment experienced by all of us over the age of 60. April 30, 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, which creates a time of reflection.
The purpose of this class is to explore the history of the 1960s by touching on topics of the time through a variety of media, including the experiences of class members. It is not intended to be a complete history of the period but will investigate the major themes of the time and some of the unique aspects of it. The course will include video clips, music, readings, and discussion of provocative issues.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Two books will be assigned reading: Chris Matthews, Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America, Simon & Schuster, available used via bookfinder.com for $6.50 or less; and Tavis Smiley, Death of a King: The Real Story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year, available new via bookfinder.com for $15 or less, used for $5 or less. Also at local libraries and Content Bookstore in Northfield.
Each week Tim will send out an email to the class with topics for the upcoming class, with questions and issues to think about, short readings, and other relevant information related to the upcoming subject matter. Also, if needed, follow up information from the previous class.
Class members will be encouraged to share their personal experiences and perceptions of the music, politics and culture of the decade. Each class period will include at least four music clips, an instructor special topic outline and class discussions.
Reading Note: It is suggested that students start reading the Chris Matthews book on Kennedy/Nixon soon after registering for the class since it will be discussed in Week Two. The Smiley book on King will be discussed in Week Seven.
Week 1: Overview of class and schedule of topics, readings, music, etc. Student introductions and personal experiences of the 1960s.
Week 2: National Politics: “The Greek Tragedy of the Kennedy/Nixon Decade.” Reading: Chris Matthews, Kennedy Nixon.
Week 3: Counterculture: “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.
Week 4: Social Change: “Women’s Liberation, Role of Religion and Family.”
Week 5: American Cities: “Reshaped, for Better or Worse.”
Week 6: Vietnam War: “50 years of Reflections”
Week 7: Civil Rights: “We Shall Overcome v. Burn Baby Burn.” Reading: Travis Smiley, Death of a King.
Week 8: Impact of the “60s”: 55 Years later
Dana Strand taught French Literature and Language at Carleton College from 1981 to 2016, including courses on 20thcentury French and Francophone Literature (primarily North African). Her publications include a book on the short fiction of Colette, and an edited volume on French Cultural Studies. She has taught previous CVEC courses on French films. dstrand@carleton.edu
Overview: The stories included on the reading list, which we will read in English, are drawn from the works of well-known writers from France and North Africa—Beaumont, Merimee, Balzac, Maupassant, Colette, Sartre, Djebar, and Laroui. Organized roughly in chronological order, the program will begin with an 18th century fairy tale (Beauty and the Beast), written by a woman, and end with humorous stories about postcolonial adventures and misadventures, written in the 21st century by a Moroccan engineer turned academic.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Since the stories are, well, short (there’s a total page count of under 200 for the 8-week course), we will be able to devote the bulk of our class time to in-depth discussion. Students should prepare by reading the stories slowly, perhaps more than once. They will be made available in a coursebook mailed to students for which there will be a separate charge of $16 for printing and mailing.
Week 1: Introduction to the course, discussion of the specific characteristics of short fiction and the ways those guidelines have been drawn and redrawn. Consideration of Madame le Prince de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast (11pgs.) as an example of a fairy tale drawn from folk tradition, followed by a comparison with the poet Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film of the same name. Since the film is 90 minutes long, students will have to arrange to see it before coming to the first class. As of the moment (December 2024), the film is streaming on Hulu and Apple +. It is also available through streaming from the Kanopy collection at the public library.
Week 2: “Mateo Falcone” (7 pgs.) set in what the writer Prosper Mérimée imagines as the “wild” French island of Corsica in the 19th century (think mafia!), and “La Vénus d’Ille” (19 pgs.), named after a statue with startling powers found in Ille, a town in Southwest France. Also by Mérimée, this story is inspired by the fantastic tales introduced in France with great success by the German author E T A Hoffman (as in Offenbach’s opera Tales of …)
Week 3: I needed to include an obligatory story by Balzac, one of the most prolific writers of the 19th century. “Sarrasine,” (26 pgs.), tells the tale of how a Parisian man’s passionate fascination with an opera singer goes awry. This is one of the two longer stories in the course, but Balzac is worth the time.
Week 4: “A Country Excursion” (8 pgs.) by Guy de Maupassant (sort of the French O. Henry). Alas, Maupassant is relentlessly depressing, but we’ll try to lighten things up a bit with the sumptuous photography of Jean Renoir’s film adaptation, A Day in the Country, which is short enough for us to watch together in class.
Week 5: During the first half of the 20th century, critics in France judged Colette to be an inferior writer whose “natural” style did not qualify her work as serious literature. Colette was later rehabilitated by feminist critics who championed her talents and her insights into the experiences of both women and men. Mining her childhood in small town Burgundy and her years as a theatrical performer, she often inserted herself into the stories as a character named “Colette.” We will read “Green Sealing Wax” (13 pgs.), “Sleepless Nights” (3 pgs.), “The Abduction” (3), and “The Priest on the Wall” (3).
Week 6: Jean-Paul Sartre’s “The Wall” (15 pgs.) and Albert Camus’s “The Guest” (11 pgs.) present two scenarios that serve to lay the groundwork for their post-World War II existentialism. In the moving memoir, “Bare Feet,” (10 pgs.) the French, German, Algerian, Jewish writer, Hélène Cixous, describes a similar sort of impasse she encountered as a child in a divided, colonized Algeria, although Cixous is no existentialist.
Week 7: With “The Woman in Pieces” (28 pgs.), Assia Djebar provides a troubling portrayal of Algeria during the bloody civil war that followed the French withdrawal from the country. Trained as a historian, Djebar sets up a haunting parallel between one of Scheherazade’s tales of the Arabian Nights and the Islamist reign of terror in the 90’s. Trigger warnings here.
Week 8: Respite. Fouad Laroui, a Moroccan engineer turned professor of French at a Dutch university and then prize-winning author, is one funny guy (perhaps a bit funnier in French than in English). But his humor always has an edge, honed with sometimes withering social commentary. We will read two of his stories from his most recent collection, the first entitled “The Curious Case of Dassoukines’s Trousers” (10 pgs.) and the second, “Born Nowhere” (10 pgs.).
Ted Johnson taught microbiology and immunology courses at St Olaf College over a 40-year career. He has led four international abroad semesters with St Olaf students and several trips with alumni. His research was centered on the immune response to cancer related to age. johnsont@stolaf.edu
Overview: Viruses and bacteria enter our bodies every day and immune responses are generated resulting in recovery from the disease. How are we protected against further encounters with that microbe? White blood cells, antibodies and cytokines play an important role in the immune response. How does a vaccine protect an individual? Is there a risk in being vaccinated? Why do some individuals still get ill after exposure to the virus even after having been vaccinated? How does the immune system prevent cancer from developing? Why does cancer still develop in some individuals? How is immunotherapy used to treat cancer? Organs can be transplanted to replace failing organs. What can be done to prevent the immune system from rejecting the transplanted organ? Immune responses can also be harmful by over-reacting in an allergy or forming an autoimmune response against the body. How is autoimmunity treated? Join us as we navigate the complexities of the immune system and give you the ability to understand the immune response.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: No textbook will be required, but online resources reflecting the concepts presented in class will be available, in addition to questions raised in class by students. The material to be covered is at the basic introductory level, so that no prior background in science is needed.
Week 1: Cells and lymphoid organs. What cells and organs make up the immune system? What are white blood cells and what is their role in the immune system? What does an increase in white blood cells indicate? What is leukemia and why is it so difficult to treat? How does innate immunity differ from acquired immunity? How does the immune system change from birth to ageing in an individual?
Week 2: Innate immunity. How does the body react to the invasion of a bacterium when it enters the body? What is the innate immune response and how does that response protect an individual? What is phagocytosis? Why don’t the white blood cells cause damage to the individual? What is inflammation? When is the process helpful and when can it be harmful to an individual? How should inflammation be treated when it is causing problems? What is septic shock?
Week 3: Antibodies/structure and function. What types of antibodies are in your body and what is their role in generating an immune response? How do antibodies stop an infection with a virus or block a bacterial toxin? How is the structure of an antibody related to its function? What is the role of complement in the function of antibodies? What are the different red blood cell types used when blood is transfused?
Week 4: T lymphocytes, cytokines and cell mediated immunity What are T lymphocytes and why are they important in the immune response? What are cytokines? What role do cytokines play in the immune response? How do cytokines accelerate and amplify the immune response? How do T cells kill a damaged cell without harming the surrounding cells?
Week 5: Antibody formation and T cell activation. Describe how antibodies form from B cells? What type of antibodies form after exposure and how do they change over time? How does the memory response differ from the initial exposure? How does a vaccine prevent disease? How are T cells activated? How are T cells controlled? How is the immune response regulated?
Week 6: The immune response to microbial infections. How do bacterial cause disease? How do antibodies react and protect the body from bacteria? Is the antibody reaction to a foreign invader specific? How do viruses cause disease? How does your immune response resolve a viral invasion? How does the immune response protect you when exposed a second time to the microbe or virus? Why do some individuals still develop a mild disease (COVID) even after having been vaccinated?
Week 7: Immune response to cancer and to transplanted organs. How does the immune system identify and reject cancer cells that develop in the body? How do T cells kill cancer cells? Why does cancer still develop in some individuals? How is immunotherapy used to treat cancer? When cells or organs are transplanted in an individual, what can be done to prevent immunological rejection of the transplant?
Week 8: Allergies and autoimmune diseases. What is an allergy and why is it harmful to the individual? What mediates an allergic response? What are the different types of allergies? What tests are used to determine what the individual is allergic to once a response has occurred? What therapy can be used to treat an allergy? What is autoimmunity? How is autoimmunity diagnosed and treated? Is there a difference in incidence of autoimmunity regarding age and gender?
Carol Rutz retired from Carleton College after 30 years of service, the last 20 years devoted to teaching undergraduates and offering faculty development in writing across the curriculum and writing assessment. She has taught four previous courses for the Cannon Valley Elder Collegium and served as executive director for four years. crutz@carleton.edu
Overview: Writers ranging from Giovanni Boccaccio to Daniel Defoe have written energetically and often obscenely about the great plagues that ravaged Europe during the Middle Ages. The 21st century experience with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which continues to evolve, has also given rise to literary responses. This class will address two such treatments: Michael Cunningham’s exquisite novel Day offers an account of one family’s experience of a particular April day in each of 2019, 2020, and 2021. Fourteen Days, edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston, has been compared to Boccaccio’s Decameron for its variety of speakers and moods. In fact, the editors corralled over 30 North American writers to collaborate on 14 stories told on successive nights on the rooftop of a six-floor walkup tenement in New York City in the spring of 2020. Everyone who could afford to leave the city is gone. Lacking the lusty romps of the Decameron, the tenants’ stories reveal their pandemic-related stress and personal secrets.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Both books are widely available, new and used, from libraries, bookstores, and online outlets. Day is available in paperback new for about $14 from Amazon. Fourteen Days is available in hardback for about $17 or as little as $7 used from Amazon. Students can expect to read 70-115 pp. per week.
Week 1: Day, April 5, 2019
Week 2: Day, April 5, 2020
Week 3: Day, April 5, 2021
Week 4: 14 Days, March 31, April 1, April 2, April 3
Week 5: 14 Days, April 4, 5, 6, 7
Week 6: 14 Days, April 8, 9, 10, 11
Week 7: 14 Days, April 12, 13
Week 8: Wrap-up, including our own pandemic stories
Philip Spensley is Professor Emeritus of theatre from Concordia University in Montreal, was a member of Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare and Shaw Festival companies, has acted, written, directed and designed professionally for stage, acted for film and television (US, Canada and Europe), taught for university and professional theatre programs in Canada and the US, and has lectured, and given workshops around the world on theatre practice and pedagogy. pspensley@earthlink.net
Overview: The theatre is a group experience. The audience reacts to cues that have been carefully planned. To help deepen an audience member’s experience and appreciation, this course will explore the means that theatre artists use to bring a play to life, to create its world, to communicate meaning, and to spark the collective emotional reactions we have when we experience a play. In evaluating conceptual choices made by the playwright, director, designers, and actors (both aesthetic and practical), we will take into account the influence of historical period and style, theatre architecture, actor-audience relationship, social expectations and psychological triggers. In doing so we will look at productions chosen by the instructor, as well as plays that class members have seen.
Course Materials and Class Schedule: Class time will include lecture, discussion, demonstration (with class member participation at times), looking at scripts as provided by the instructor and viewing visual examples. There are no additional costs for students for materials provided via handouts, emailed pdfs, and on-line links.
Week 1: What is the nature of the theatre—its impetus, its obligations? What is a play? Dramatic genres and their respective intellectual and emotional demands and effects. Presentational styles and how they color our response.
Week 2: Physical and psychological elements of theatrical communication. Theatre “language” –what “speaks” to us and how. Theatrical conventions and how they steer our expectations.
Week 3: The nature of perception—if theatre is illusion, what makes it real? Techniques that trigger emotion, intellect, and psyche. Composition, picturization, mood.
Week 4: Tools and techniques put “into use” through artistic choices. The playwright and what’s in a script.
Week 5: Tools and techniques put “into use” through artistic choices: the director and what’s behind the directorial concept; the ground plan and what it provides.
Week 6: Tools and techniques put “into use” through artistic choices: the designers—what messages the set sends; what the lighting does; what the costumes tell us; how sound affects us.
Week 7: Tools and techniques put “into use” through artistic choices: the actor as the primary tool; the individual and integrated interplay “in action” of all the above
Week 8: Tools of critical evaluation. Course review and wrap-up.