This program gives an overview of different genres of music of the war, with lyrics displayed while songs play. “Top 40” hits are interspersed with “deep cuts” from the Viet Nam War era, and the discussion includes global cultural, social, and historical contexts for the songs presented.
The 1991 film Daughters of the Dust was the first to portray the Gullah culture on film to a national audience from St. Helena Island in South Carolina. Water in the film takes on the symbol of flight, migration, and separation of the Peazant family from its roots. This lecture explores how views of water in the … Read more
How should we best be preparing students for sustainable lives in the arts? This talk will look at the historical role of the arts, current education models, and the skills needed for the current marketplace.
An in-depth look at the relationship between political structures and musical movements. Depending upon the interests of the group, this talk can include Beethoven’s Musical Treatment from Napoleon to Hitler, Baroque Music and Absolutism, Mozart and the Enlightenment, Jim Crow and Jazz, or many others.
Can include specific descriptions of different eras, major works, and/or individual composers. Any talk will feature in-depth historical context and stories about major composers of the time period.
A discussion of jazz history from its inception in New Orleans through the modern day. This talk can easily be tailored to fit the interests of the particular group and can include any combination of eras/styles, a broad overview, a focus on a particular style, or on individual artists and performers. Any discussion will include … Read more
Our society tends to divide work into neat categories. There is, for example, the work of the mind, and the work of hands. Universities are thought to prepare students for the former, technical colleges for the latter. This talk will explore the shortcomings of this type of thinking. Drawing on the experiences of teaching a … Read more
One of the most interesting dynamics of eighteenth-century literature is the emergence of women writers. This talk will examine how early women novelists took the stories they inherited from male authors and retold them in ways that were quietly subversive. This process of appropriation and redirection continues today and provides important insight on how art … Read more
Film is a major component of society’s understanding of history. How have films about the Holocaust changed over time, and how have these films changed our understanding of the Holocaust? Films such as The Diary of Anne Frank in 1959 hardly touched on the Jewish catastrophe and, in fact, eliminated much that was Jewish in the film, … Read more
