Course Descriptions
Spring 2025 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Contemporary Black Artists in America
9:00 A.M. – 10:30 A.M.
Dr. Yumi Park Huntington
This course examines the contemporary artworks of black artists in America, specifically in the 21st century. In studying these artifacts, we will discuss topics of form, style, and narrative organized through key themes, including questions of identity, race, class, ethnicity, representation, sexuality, and aesthetics. Our mission is to build art-historical knowledge about this critical aspect of American history while developing skills in seeing and writing about art.
Lecture Schedule:
Week 1 (March 4): How do we approach and analyze contemporary artworks of black artists in America?
Week 2 (March 11): Social Realism in the 21st century
Week 3 (March 25): Technology, New Millennium Performance Art
Week 4 (April 1): Social Structure/Conflict and Parody
References:
- Lisa Farrington, African American Art: A Visual and Cultural History, 2016
- Richard Powell, Black Art: A Cultural History, 2021
- Cheryl Finley, Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon, 2018
- Edited by Mark Godfrey and Zoe Whitley, Soul of Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, 2017
Introduction to Birds & Birdwatching
10:45 A.M. – 12:15 P.M.
Doug Lowry and Scott Santino, Mass Audubon Society
You've started to more closely notice the familiar and intriguing birds in your backyard, on your commute, or outside your window - now you want to know more. This online series will introduce you to the birdwatching basics, from how to identify different bird families to the various tools and resources at your disposal. Learn what makes birds unique in the animal kingdom; how to locate birds in urban, suburban, and rural communities; and basic bird biology and behavior. Let Mass Audubon experts be your guides and join one of the fastest-growing hobbies in North America.
Experiential Mindfulness
10:45 A.M. – 12:15 P.M.
Dr. Paul Galvin
Mindfulness is the intention to pay attention to the present moment nonjudgmentally. It is an approach with a long past but a recent history as it applies to psychology and other scientific fields. The course will be experiential with participants learning and applying mindfulness in their lives. The course will also touch on the historical foundations of mindfulness, Western translations of mindfulness, development of mindfulness interventions, and current neuroscience research exploring the impact of mindfulness on mental processes and behaviors.
Oliver Twist - A Simple Request: “Please Sir, I Want Some More.”
2:00 – 3:30 P.M.
Dr. Helen Heineman
Dickens points, in Oliver Twist, to the urgent relevance of the question of the poor. He had only one novel to his credit. He was overlapping writing of this novel with The Pickwick Papers and had begun another. It was a novelist discovering himself, finding a darkly imagined new kind of novel. There are rough edges, but given serial publication, he could not go back and make changes. The novel was spontaneous, and his illustrator, the famous George Cruickshank, called it “a thing of terribly vivid images.” As Dickens goes on, the novel gathers momentum. The young novelist was discovering his technique and his subject which grew to include crime: thieves, prostitutes, those who preyed upon the young, the world in all its fallen and degraded aspects. He alternates comedy and serious grimness as he describes criminal life. At its worst, murders haunt the murderer. Dickens shows us a bleak England and a lonely child abandoned to its mercy. He wrote: “I wished to show in little Oliver, the principle of good triumphing at last.”
We will read the book, drawing from the Penguin Classics Edition, in 4 installments:
Week 1 (March 4): Book the First, Chapters 1-11
Week 2 (March 11): Book the First, Chapters 12-22
Week 3 (March 25): Book the Second, Chapters 1-14
Week 4 (April 1): Book the Third, Chapters 1- 15
The United States Constitution: An Owner's Manual for 2025
NEW TIME: 3:45 P.M. – 5:15 P.M.
Dr. David Smailes
The Constitution of the United States is at the heart of our political life, defining the powers and duties of government and shaping our politics throughout American history. But the Constitution is also a document that few have read completely, and the people who created it had very different ideas than our own on how it would function. Join us as we explore the creation and development of this important document, especially in light of what we need to know about the Constitution and the politics of 2025.