Omnilore Masthead

 

TOPICS  OFFERED  FOR  FALL  2012

Please note that the books listed for each course are only possible candidates. 
Do not buy any until the pre-meeting and a decision on the common reading is made.

Classes start September 4th and end December 31st.  

Holiday periods are adapted to by individual class voting.

 

1.     (CAN)    A  BIOGRAPHY  OF  CANCER

Almost everyone knows someone who has been touched by cancer. The author of the book, The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee states in his comprehensive "biography" on one of the most virulent diseases of our time the statistic that: "In 2010, about six hundred thousand Americans, and more than 7 million humans around the world, will die of cancer." This S/DG will look at cancer's origins along with how modern treatments--multi-pronged chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, as well as preventative care--came into existence thanks to a century's worth of research, trials, and small, essential breakthroughs around the globe. The book was published in 2010 and won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction where the jury said the book was elegantly written. The book weaves together Mukherjee's experiences as a hematology/oncology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as the history and science of cancer treatment and research.

Presentation topics:

·         Information on cancers and treatments

·         Alternative options for treatment

·         Medical ethics

·         Social impacts of the illness on the patient, family, others

·         Relationships between patients and care-givers

·         Advocacy associations

·         Economics and Fund Raising efforts

Common Reading:    The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

  

2.     (COL)    1493 – THE  NEW  WORLD  AFTER  COLUMBUS  

Prior to the voyages of Columbus, the Western Hemisphere had been separated from Europe and Africa for millions of years and from Asia for thousands of years. (True, there were minor incursions by the Vikings.) This gave rise to major differences in culture, economics, biology and agriculture, and technology between the continents. As a result of the rapid and large planned and unintentional exchanges after Columbus, the world has never been the same. Agricultural products which were introduced to different continents include potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, peppers, and oranges. Earthworms in much of North America had been wiped out by the glaciers so the vegetation that flourished was different than now as a result of the accidental reintroduction of worms among the roots of plants brought by colonizers. Diseases, including malaria and yellow fever, carried by pigs and other animals brought by de Soto nearly wiped out the Native Americans in southern and middle America and made many coastal regions dangerous for later colonizers.  The Spanish set up a substantial and long lasting trade across the Pacific, exchanging Mexican silver for Chinese silk at Manila, the start of globalization.

This S/DG will explore the many ways life around the world, but particularly in the Americas, changed as a result of the European incursion into the New World. Some participants may choose to focus on the social and economic changes in Europe, e.g., feeding the Counter Reformation, or in Asia. Certainly diets around the world changed.

Common Reading:    1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles                                      C. Mann (Knopf, 2011)

  

3.     (DIS)       VOYAGE  OF  DISCOVERY:  THE  PANAMA  CANAL

When the Panama Canal opened in 1914, it was a technological marvel and an important strategic and economic asset to the United States. It revolutionized world shipping patterns and removed the need to route ships via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn. The canal saves approximately 7,800 miles on a trip between New York and San Francisco. Transit time between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean was reduced from weeks to hours.

In his award winning book, Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914, author David McCullough introduces the events, challenges and personalities that are the history of the canal.  He allows us the opportunity to discover underlying causes for what happened, the role national pride and ambition played in shaping critical events, and the unforeseen consequences of untarnished “progress.”  Historical notables such as Ferdinand de Lesseps and Theodore Roosevelt are treated as real people caught up by forces beyond their control or even reckoning.

There are many possible topics for presentation, including the 21st century building of a third lock, the return of the Canal Zone to Panama, the impact of the Canal on the Panamanian environment, and tourism in Panama.  You might even decide to take a cruise through the Canal as a result of taking this class!

Common Reading:    Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914

by David McCullough  (1978, 698 pages)

  

4.     (EVL)      THE  SCIENCE  OF  EVIL

Borderline personality disorder, autism, narcissism, psychosis, Asperger's: All of these syndromes have one thing in common--lack of empathy. In some cases, this absence can be dangerous, but in others it can simply mean a different way of seeing the world.  This SDG will review the research behind some of these diseases to understand if there is “true evil” in the world and how can we understand human cruelty.  Are there social and environmental factors that can influence the lack of natural empathy?  Conversely, can social and environmental facts erode empathy to create evil?

The author is an award-winning British researcher who has investigated psychology and autism for decades.  In this book, he develops a new brain-based theory of human cruelty.

Presentation ideas:

·         Individual personality diseases

·         Examples of evil individuals from fiction (Hannibal Lecter, etc) and real world (Adolph Hitler, Stalin, etc)

Common reading:     The Science of Evil:  On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty

by Simon Baron-Cohen (March 2011)

5.     (GAM)   GAMES

Do games allow us to enjoy a purely pleasurable pursuit or do they engage us in learning about decision making, solving problems, being more confident in our skills in the “real world”.  There are 174 million gamers in the United States alone and everyone knows people who play occasionally or are seriously involved in some form of game playing.  The author of this book shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds.  The author is a visionary game designer who reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness.

Presentation ideas:

·         Economics of each type of game  – board, video, arcade, etc

·         History of games

·         Designers of games

·         Game competitions

·         Conventions

Common Reading:    Reality Is Broken:  Why Games Make Us Better and How They

Can Change the World, by Jane McGonigal (December 2011)

 

6.     (INI)    INCOME  INEQUALITY  

People’s incomes vary between individuals within a nation. Different nations have different profiles of income between individuals.  And there is inequality among citizens relative to the entire world.  A great deal is being made of this in the US political arena today.  Is this really important?  How does it come about and what effects will it likely have?  Income inequality has been compared to cholesterol, some kinds are good and some are bad – how do we tell the difference?  How to promote the good in the right amount and how to suppress the bad in a just and fair way?

Common Reading:    The Haves and the Have Nots – A Brief and Idiosyncratic History

                                            of Global Inequality, by Branko Milanovic (Basic Books, 2011)

  

7.     (ISV)    ISLAND  OF  VICE

When young Theodore Roosevelt was appointed police commissioner of New York City, he had the astounding gall to try to shut down the brothels, gambling joints, and after-hours saloons. This is the story of how TR took on Manhattan vice . . . and vice won.

In the 1890s, New York City was America’s financial, manufacturing, and entertainment capital, and also its preferred destination for sin, teeming with forty thousand prostitutes, glittery casinos, and all-night dives. Police captains took hefty bribes to see nothing while reformers writhed in frustration.

In Island of Vice, Richard Zacks paints a vivid portrait of the lewd underbelly of 1890s New York, and of Theodore Roosevelt, the puritanical, cocksure police commissioner resolved to clean it up. Writing with great wit and zest, Zacks explores how young Roosevelt goes head to head with Tammany Hall, takes midnight rambles with muckraker Jacob Riis, and tries to convince two million New Yorkers to enjoy wholesome family fun. When Roosevelt’s crackdown succeeds too well, even his supporters turn on him, and TR discovers that New York loves its sin more than its salvation.

This book available in paperback and kindle editions should interest all Omniloreans who love tales of noir with a historical background. Many possibilities for further research, discussions, and presentations await the Omniloreans who join this group.

Common Reading:    Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up

Sin-Loving New York, by Richard Zacks (March 2012)

 

8.     (KOR)     TWO  KOREAS    THE  STORIED  PAST  AND  COMPLICATED

                             PRESENT

Come with us to mysterious North Korea, a starving nation which is one of the most repressive totalitarian regimes today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded, and an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life.

And then to South Korea, a modern democracy, home of companies like Samsung & Hyundai.  Rated by the UN in 1953 as the poorest nation in the world, South Korea now claims the world’s 15th largest economy and expects in 2012 to provide every household with an internet connection 200 times the speed of that in the US.  It is a cosmopolitan nation that enjoyed “strutting its stuff” in 1988 by hosting the Olympic Games, and an “education crazy’ society where 97% of students graduate high school, and all students learn English.

Our class will review the modern history of the Korean people:  the social, cultural, religious, economic and political tides that have impacted them over the last few centuries. We’ll discuss the Korean War up through North Korea’s recent rocket launch, and consider the nation’s relationships with China, Japan, Russia and the US.

We will try to learn everything about Korea but their language!

Possible Presentation Topics:

Ø  Reunification: A pipe dream?

Ø  North Korea’s political prison camps (Escape from Camp 13: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, by Blaine Harden (March 2012)

Ø  The role of world leaders and human rights organizations

Ø  S. Korea’s Songdo International Business District (a sustainable smart city where all   residential, business and government computer systems will share data)

Ø  Daily life in North vs. South Korea (Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick (September 2010)

Possible Common Reading:

A Concise History of Modern Korea: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present, by Michael J. Seth (2009)

 

9.     (MED)     HOW  TECHNOLOGY  IS  CHANGING  MEDICINE

Perhaps the greatest recent influence on the practice of medicine is new, and particularly digital and wireless, technology. More important than surgery, drugs, and rehabilitative therapy is the rise of technological breakthroughs that have revolutionized the medical profession. Experts agree that we are entering a new age of medicine, when our everyday experience of being ill and getting better will be more like science fiction than today’s routine trip to the doctor. Future medicine will be more efficient and more participative. For example: low cost hardware and software can monitor a person’s condition, image the heart and warn of impending heart attacks; an electronic nose that detects infection, such as pneumonia, based on a person’s breath; telehealth software that serves as a monitoring nurse for difficult to manage chronic illnesses such as diabetes; wheelchairs operated by reading electrical brainwaves for patients with severe neurological deterioration. The promise of ‘individualized medicine,” e.g., better treatment of cancer based on genomics is getting closer. 

We will explore how technology has changed diagnosis, surgery, medicines, and services to the disabled, record keeping, patient-doctor contact, health care costs and many other aspects of medicine. We will discuss what the human experience will be and how we can prepare ourselves for the moral and ethical challenges that these awesome changes will bring.

Common Reading:    The Creative Destruction of Medicine by Eric Topol, MD 

(Basic Books, 2012)

  

10.    (MTW)   THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  MARK  TWAIN    

This first complete and unexpurgated autobiography is a major literary event that brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes.  It presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice - brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended at the 100th anniversary of his death. We will research, reflect upon and discuss: reminiscences from his youth of landscapes, rural idylls, and Tom Sawyeresque mockery; acid-etched profiles of friends and enemies; his searing polemic on a 1906 American massacre of Filipino insurgents; a hilarious screed against a hapless editor who dared tweak his prose; the countless tales of the author's own bamboozlement, unto bankruptcy, by publishers, business partners, doctors, and miscellaneous moochers; and, his vision of America - as half paradise and as half swindle.

Common Reading:    Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, by Mark Twain  (Un. of California Press; November 2010; 760 pages)

  

11.   (MUS)     MUSICAL  MOVIES  AND  AMERICAN  CULTURE

An exploration of American culture and values as depicted in the musical movie.  Americans have always been in love with musicals.  Some reveal enduring American values and some reveal snapshots of our society at a particular time; all appeal to the masses.  If you are interested in enjoying the great music and songs of popular musicals and in discussing what has made America America, then this group would be for you.  Each participant would choose a musical movie for each of us to watch at home.  He or she would then prepare a presentation about the movie and prepare discussion questions regarding the movie and how it depicts American culture or values.  Some possibilities for musical movies are:  Sister Act, Oklahoma, Dream Girls, Pocahantas, Chicago, 1776, Grease, Hairspray, South Pacific, and many, many more.

No Common Reading.

 

12.   (ORC)     THE  ORCHESTRA

A symphony orchestra is a particular expression of the human need for making music. Like any human institution, the musical ensemble that we know as a symphony orchestra grew out of particular societal conditions. It is an instrumental ensemble that developed over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe. This SD/G will examine various aspects of the orchestra, such as its history, the instruments used, the musicians who play, the glorious scores that are brought to life in a concert. (Maybe even some duds.)

Possible Topics for Presentations

Ø  History of the orchestra

Ø  Orchestral instruments

Ø  Repertoire

Ø  The role of the conductor and orchestra manager

Ø  The art of orchestration

Ø  The public for orchestral music and the concert experience

Ø  Looking backward and forward: period instruments, contemporary music

Common Reading:    Orchestra: Origins and Transformations, by Joan Peyser

(May 2000; paperback)

  

13.    (PAR)   AMERICANS  IN  19TH  CENTURY  PARIS 

This class will discuss the Americans who went to Paris in the 19th century to acquire the finest training in the fine arts, writing, and medicine.  It will describe the diplomats who witnessed the abdication of King Louis Philippe, the Revolution of 1848, the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune.  It will include the Paris Exhibitions, the great inventions of the 19th century and the circuses Americans introduced to the French.

Presentations will cover a wide variety of topics and the men and women who played so great a part.

Ø  Among the painters were Samuel F. B. Morse, who later became known for his invention, George Healy, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.

Ø  The sculptor Augustin Saint Gaudins and the architect, William Morris Hunt.

Ø  The writers: James Fennimore  Cooper, Nathaniel Park Willis, John Sanderson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Ø  The medical students: Oliver Wendall Holmes, who later became associate justice of the Supreme Court.  James Jackson, Jr. and Jonathon Mason Warner, sons of the founders of Massachusetts General Hospital.  Charles Sumner, who later became a senator and an advocate for ending slavery as a result of his Parisian experiences.

Ø  Leading women of the time:  Emma Willard who established the Troy Female Seminary and was the first advocate for higher education for women.  Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to become a physician and Margaret Fuller who championed women's rights.

Ø  George Caitlan, painter of American Indians, who brought an Iowa tribe for exhibitions in France.  P. T. Barnum who brought his circus along with Tom Thumb.

Ø  The diplomats, Richard Rush and Elihu Washburne whose letters and journals  provided invaluable glimpses into the events of this period.

The quality of the text and the variety of possible presentations should make this an interesting class.

Common Reading:    The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, by David McCullough

(May 15, 2012)

14.    (POL)  WINNER  TAKE  ALL  POLITICS

In his 2002 book, Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips wrote, “The debate over the compatibility of wealth and democracy is as old as our republic.  DeTocqueville, in 1837, hedged his praise for democracy in America with concern that the new industrial elite, ‘one of the harshest that ever existed’, would bring about ‘permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy.’” 

Last year, the Occupy Wall Street protests focused attention on the increase in income inequality in the United States.  In our common reading, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson maintain that these developments, driven by politics, have been harmful to the middle class – and to the country as a whole.  Others assert that income inequality is actually good for the country and ought to be encouraged.

In this S/DG, we’ll continue this debate.  Possible topics for presentation include

Ø  How has the tension between wealth and democracy played out over time in the United States and other democracies?

Ø  Who are America’s wealthy and how did they make their fortunes?

Ø  What have America’s wealthy contributed and what have they taken?

Ø  Is there a threat to democracy from economic elites?

Ø  What shifts in income distribution have taken place in the US in the last 30 years?

Ø  What challenges face democracy in the US in the future?

Common Reading:    Winner Take All Politics; How Washington made the Rich Richer and Turned its Back on the Middle Class, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson (March 2011, 368 pp)

 

15.    (PPP)     WHY  NATIONS  FAIL:  THE  ORIGINS  OF  POWER,  PROSPERITY,

   AND  POVERTY   

We continue to see and read about poor countries in the world. We send money and clothing to various causes. In some cases we volunteer our time and efforts in helping people in these countries. Yet the solution ultimately seems to frustrate us. This course will challenge your views on why some countries are poor and some are rich. The two economists, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. focus on a single question: Why are poor places poor, and is there something we can do about it? This is one of the most important questions imaginable in economics—indeed, in the world today.

Acemoglu and Robinson have assembled what is, in effect, a gigantic, super-complete database of every country’s history, and used it to ask questions—wicked smart questions. They found unexpected answers—ones that may not satisfy partisans of either side, but have the ring of truth. Each chapter provides multiple subjects for presentations.

Common Reading:    Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (March 2012)

 

16.    (REV)     THE  REVOLUTIONARY  GENERATION

The class will examine the generation responsible for combining the ideals of the 1776 Declaration of Independence with the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Congress to create the practical workings of our government. We will study what distinguished the American Revolution from most others, the selection of Washington D.C. as the nation's capital, slavery and how the beliefs, personalities, and strengths of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John and Abigail Adams influenced the development of our national identity.  Potential Study/Discussion Group topics include the principals’ lives, contributions, legacy and other early influences in formation of our government.

Common Reading:    Pulitzer Prize Winner Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary

Generation, by Joseph J Ellis (paperback, First Vintage Books

Edition, 2002)

 

17.    (RRD)     RAILROADED: THE  STORY  OF  THE  TRANSCONTINENTALS 

                          AND  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICA    

This original, deeply researched history shows the transcontinentals to be pivotal actors in the making of modern America; but the triumphal myths of the golden spike, robber barons larger than life, and an innovative capitalism all die here. Instead we have a new vision of the Gilded Age, often darkly funny that shows history to be rooted in failure as well as successes.

Join this Omnilore study and discussion group to learn more about the origins of our railroad system and the men and women who accomplished this amazing task. Many interesting topics for discussion and further research are included in this thoroughly researched book. A field trip to a local railroad museum or to downtown's lovely Union Station might be added to this class if students desire.

Common Reading:    Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern

America, by Richard White  (April, 2012)

 

18.    (SCE)      THE  SOCIAL  CONQUEST  OF  EARTH   

This course will look at trying to understand the human condition. The three fundamental questions raised in Wilson's latest book.  Where Did We Come From?,' 'What Are We?'' and 'Where Are We Going?'. Wilson's work challenges one of the central tenets of evolution - that natural selection acts far more strongly on individuals and genetic relatives than on broader social groups. He also demonstrates that religion, philosophy, and introspection alone can never sufficiently answer such queries.

"The Social Conquest of Earth" also reverses his prior view that the evolution of altruism was driven by kin selection rather than group selection. As cooperative colonies dominate non-cooperative ones and multiply, so do their alleged 'altruism' genes, he contends that the competition of one group against others favors self-sacrificial behaviors in individuals that benefit the group - even those that aren't related. Each chapter provides multiple subjects for presentations.

Common Reading:    The Social Conquest of Earth, by Edward O. Wilson   (April 2012)

 

19.    (SHK)   SHAKESPEARE:   ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE …  

The Shakespeare S/DG has planned a September-December season reading and studying 3 of the Bard's plays – well, at least two plus one probably partially authored by the Bard. 

With players standing and with a few props, we propose to do reading walk-throughs of two Comedies ("Cymbeline" & "The Two Noble Kinsmen") plus "King Edward III."   Published anonymously in 1596 at the height of Shakespeare's fame, "King Edward III" is unique in that it is not generally listed in the Bard's canon of work, but recently many scholars have decided he wrote at least part of the play.  Edward III fits excellently with Shakespeare's History plays because he is the revered ancestor of 9 History plays' title characters.  We will study how Edward III, who transformed England into a military power and oversaw progressive developments in parliament and legislation, sets the stage for the War of the Roses drama running 8 plays from Richard II through Richard III (6 Henry plays in between).  We will also embark on a first-time exploration of what makes a play Shakespeare's by comparison and contrast. 

In this SDG you will learn how to research all perspectives of Shakespeare’s works — sources of each play upon which the Bard builds rich characters and enhances the plots, how to play each character “in character,” themes, symbols, images, motifs, commentary on issues of the day, and all manner of rhyme and reason.  Class members each serve on one play’s Board of Directors, responsible for casting roles for the repertory and leading discussions based on the research  optionally adding videos, music, and costumes.  For a glimpse of how we live the Bard in this S/DG, check http://omnilore.org/members/Curriculum/SDGs/12a-SHK-Shakespeare to view the Winter/Spring's Shakespeare SDG's website of links to references relevant to our plays and downloadable organizing artifacts.

There are no prerequisites, theatrical or otherwise.  You will find that the Bard of Stratford-on-Avon will teach us, just as he’s taught others for four hundred years.  With plenty for the novice as well as the veteran, it is a foregone conclusion members will leave this class with a fuller understanding of the masterful story construction, realistic characters with depth and humanity, and the rich, evocative language which have earned William Shakespeare the title of greatest writer in the English language.

Common Reading:    Selected Plays

 

20.    (TAX) TAX  REFORM  ALTERNATIVES

As one US politician put it, “A tax code should be fair, competitive, and simple. The US tax code fails on all three counts.”  Most people in this country have critical judgments regarding the tax code, though possibly for very different and even opposing reasons. It seems certain that “tax reform” will be a major political issue for the next several years. Yet most Americans are woefully unfamiliar with the tax code and what its effects are, how it got the way it is, and what may realistically be done to improve the situation. It seems likely that the politicians will “kick the can ahead” until after the election. That gives us time to learn more and debate the nature of the changes that we want and must be made.

The recommended common reading presents history, personalities, rationales and alternatives in an easily absorbable style that includes quantitative data as well as philosophical and political arguments.

Common Reading:    The Benefit and the Burden – Tax Reform, Why We Need It and What It Will Take, by Bruce Bartlett (Simon and Schuster, 2012)

Supplemental Reading:

Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen’s Guide to the Debate Over Taxes, by Joel Slemrod & Jon

Bakja, (MIT Press, 2008)

Bartlett’s blog published by the NY Times

  

21.    (TED)   TED  TALKS:  IDEAS  WORTH  SPREADING

A click on www.ted.com will take you to an unusual and fascinating website – TED talks.  TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.  It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  Since then its scope has become ever broader, adding people from the worlds of Arts, Business, Culture, Science, and Global Issues.  The annual TED Conference is held in Long Beach, California, and the TED Global conference is in Oxford UK.  At these conferences TED brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).  These are, for the most part, riveting talks by remarkable people made available free to the world online. 

Participants click on ted.com, select a talk and do research on the subject and/or the speaker.  The talk will serve as a nucleus for the presentation. As is customary, at the meeting before the presentation the presenter provides the group with a handout announcing the talk chosen and questions or ideas for consideration leading to discussion.  Group members watch the talk on their computer at home and come prepared for informed discussion.

This S/DG has been offered several times previously, the last time in Summer 2011.  With more than 450 talks now available and more added each week there are plenty of talks that have not been subjects of the earlier classes.

No Common Reading.

 

22.    (VIS)      BINOCULAR  VISION:  AWARD-WINNING  SHORT  STORIES   

Award winning author, Edith Pearlman, is one of our premiere storytellers. In this sumptuous collection of short stories she provides a feast for fiction aficionados. Spanning four decades and three prize-winning collections, these twenty-one vintage selected stories and thirteen scintillating new ones take us around the world, from Jerusalem to Central America, from tsarist Russia to London during the blitz, from central Europe to Manhattan, and from the Maine coast to Godolphin, Massachusetts, a fictional suburb of Boston. These charged locales, and the lives of the endlessly varied characters within them are evoked with tenderness and incisiveness found only by our most observant seers.

No matter what situation in which her characters find themselves, Edith Pearlman conveys their experience with wit and aplomb, with relentless but clear-eyed optimism, and with a supple prose that reminds us, sentence by sentence, page by page, or the gifts our greatest innovators can bestow. These wonderful stories should provide an excellent backdrop for lively discussions and further research by our short story loving Omniloreans.

Common Reading:    Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories, by Edith Pearlman

                                    (January 2011; available in paperback & Kindle)

 

 

23.    (WOF)     WALL  OR  FENCE   THE  ROLE  OF  RELIGION  IN  AMERICAN

                        POLITICS?     

We live in a country with a significant fraction, quite probably underestimated, of the population being nonreligious, and a larger fraction unsure of themselves on the issue of religious faith. This is a major shift from earlier times and other parts of the world. Yet, the USA is much more “religious” than many other advanced, developed countries.

There is a seemingly endless debate in some circles whether or not there is a “wall” between church and state in this country, or maybe it is a “chain-link fence.” One presidential candidate seemed to hold that there should be no separation. Another candidate has a “questionable” religion in the minds of some voters. The incumbent has been accused of being an under-cover Muslim, which presumably is not acceptable. What is the place of religion in American political life?

This subject will be studied and debated in an SDG format. The history will be derived from various sources, e.g., the common reading, while projections of the effects of various political, cultural, and legal arrangements may be presented and argued.

Common reading:     There are numerous books on this subject, such as:

Separation of Church and State, by Phillip Hamburger

(Harvard, 2002; ISBN-10: 0674007344 | ISBN-13: 978-0674007345)

  

24.    (WRI)    THE  WRITING  MIND

This S/DG concentrates on fostering creativity and improving techniques of the writer through the production of original pieces of writing, literary critique and presentations by each group member.

Our interest is in writing original pieces of fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry, etc. and supporting each other in discussion and critique of our work to improve our efforts.  As members of Omnilore, we make Presentations on literary topics and on the philosophy, subtleties or techniques of writing. Presentations on famous writers are to concentrate on influences on the writer, style and techniques used, not just on biography. Primary interest for presentations is on the craft of writing.  We know that many Omniloreans are interested in family history and autobiography and we welcome them.

Each member will be responsible for;

1.      a Presentation, as described;

2.      two submissions: original fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essay or other form of writing (autobiography, family history, etc.).

3.      for reading and critiquing submissions from other group members.

We welcome new members who share our interest in writing. 

Common Reading:    None Suggested

  

25.    (CSU)   CSUDH  FALL  2011  LECTURE  SERIES

The Fall 2012 Osher Lecture Series will be on the American West.  The completed topic lineup for this series will either be printed in the July-August 2012 newsletter or sent as an e-mail sometime in August.

If you are interested in the CSUDH lecture series, let us know by placing an X in the coordinator box next to the CSU topic, so we can have a list of those to inform when more details become available about the series.  However, do NOT enter it in the course "order of preference box" along with your other S/DG topics.

 

Omnilore—OLLI at CSUDH, P.O. Box 7000-236, Redondo Beach, CA, 90277-8710
Last Updated: May 23,  2012 (dg)
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