Wednesday Courses   

Bygone Badass Broads by MacKenzi Lee features 54 remarkable and forgotten trailblazing women from all over the world. With tales of heroism and cunning, in-depth bios, and witty storytelling, Bygone Badass Broads gives new life to these historic female pioneers. Starting in the fifth century BC and continuing to the present, the book takes a closer look at bold and inspiring women who dared to step outside the traditional gender roles of their time. Coupled with Lee's humorous and conversational storytelling style, this book is an outright celebration of the badass women who paved the way for the rest of us.

Required Reading: Bygone Badass Broads by MacKenzi Lee

Venturing back to Europe in 1947, Martin Buber delivered six lectures to a group of Dutch religious socialists. As we closely read and discuss The Way of Humanity According to Chasidic Teaching, we may discern Buber's profound need to offer a spiritual, existential, and moral anchor to a European humanity shattered by the Holocaust, the devastation of World War II, and the alienation of modern life. Is the advice from a breakaway 18th-century Jewish movement applicable to us today? Martin Buber (1878–1965) was a renowned Austrian-Israeli philosopher, theologian, and educator, best known for his philosophy of dialogue and the "I-Thou" relationship, developed in his 1923 masterpiece I and Thou. A proponent of cultural Zionism, he advocated for a binational Arab-Jewish state before moving from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine in 1938, where he became a professor of anthropology and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Way of Humanity will be on a shared screen during class discussions. If you wish a copy of your own, see: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Humanity-According-Chasidic-Teaching/dp/0881236373.

August Wilson was the first African American playwright to have a Broadway theater bear his name, honoring his powerful portrayal of African American culture. In this course, we will read, watch, and examine plays from Wilson’s American Cycle, which represents each decade of the 20th century. We will explore his life and influences while focusing on Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Seven Guitars, tracing his interpretation and celebration of African American culture.

This Osher Online course, offered through the Osher National Resource Center, lets you learn with fellow lifelong learners nationwide, guided by a world-class expert. OSHER ONLINE COURSES ARE NON-REFUNDABLE.

Bridge Basics I is a course for individuals new to bridge or those who have been away from the game for a while. Further, this course would work for anyone currently playing bridge who would like a refresher. This course is taught on Wednesdays, online, for eight weeks. The class starts at 9:30 a.m. and finishes at 11:30 a.m. The classes are two hours long and consist of direct instruction and play of bridge hands via the Shark Bridge app.

There is a $20.00 non refundable fee for this course, paid to the teacher. The fee must be received by the instruction by the 2nd class. The fee covers the cost of the book for this class, Bidding in the 21st Century. The book is provided by the American Contract Bridge League.

Joe Christmas doesn't know if he's Black or White—and in the Jim Crow South, that uncertainty is lethal. Ruthless, rootless, drifting into Mississippi, he passes as White until his secret lover, a Yankee spinster, is brutally murdered. Betrayed and accused as a Black man, Christmas becomes the target of a vengeful manhunt. Faulkner brackets this dark story between two others: Lena Grove searching for the father of her unborn child, and Reverend Hightower, a disgraced minister haunted by Confederate ghosts. In Faulkner's most straightforward major novel, these entangled tales confront us with persistent, complex issues. Class discussion will include race and gender relations, burdens of history, repressive religious traditions, cultures of violence, and the meaning of community.

Required Text: William Faulkner, Light in August, Vintage International Edition, 507 pages, ISBN 0-679-73226-8, or equivalent. The Audible Modern Vanguard audiobook version narrated by Will Patton is also quite good.

No class on 10/21.

Great Decisions is a program of the Foreign Policy Association, updated each year. High-quality educational materials are prepared and distributed to discussion groups in cities and universities throughout the United States. For each topic, participants receive a chapter describing current issues and a video featuring background information and interviews with world leaders and scholars.

Required book: Great Decisions 2026 Briefing Book, available from the Foreign Policy Association. https://fpa.org/product/great-decisions-2026/

My Favorite Bridge Conventions is a course for individuals who have played bridge before or are currently playing on a regular basis. This course is taught on Wednesdays, online, for eight weeks. The class starts at 1:00 p.m. and finishes at 3:00 p.m. The classes are two hours long and consist of direct instruction and play of bridge hands via the Shark Bridge app. If you have questions about this course or are unsure if this is the right course for you, please contact the instructor, Mike Holmes, at mdholmes8@yahoo.com.

There is a $20.00 non-negotiable or refundable fee for this course, paid to the teacher. Note: The fee must be received by the instructor by the 2nd class. The fee covers the app fees for using our virtual bridge table "Shark."

This four-week course is for people who suspect that curiosity does not retire. We'll explore artificial intelligence slowly and thoughtfully—not as technicians, but as human beings navigating a profound cultural shift. Practical questions and bigger ones are both welcome. Retirement was supposed to be the quiet part. Then humanity invented machines that can converse, explain, summarize, brainstorm, argue, and occasionally sound wiser than your cousin Larry. Bring basic copy-and-paste skills and a willingness to wonder. WiFi tablet or laptop helpful but not mandatory.

The class on 10/21 will be online.

The Framers of the Constitution detested factions and political parties. They believed self-interested political divisions were incompatible with republicanism, destructive of civic virtue, and dangerous to the stability of a nation. Organized political opposition, they feared, would poison the republic. Yet by the end of the 1790s, the United States had developed its first party system. What happened to cause such a dramatic change?

This course examines the events and personalities of the 1790s that triggered opposition, faction, and party. Debates over finance, constitutional power, regional interests, and America's relationship with Britain and revolutionary France divided the nation's leaders into rival camps with competing visions of what kind of republic the new nation should become. Americans were forced to ask if political opposition could exist without destroying republican government itself. What emerged was something new in the history of the world: the acceptance of a legitimate political opposition.

Required Reading: Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789 - 1815. Oxford University Press, 2009. Chapters 1 - 8

This course examines the history of country and bluegrass music in the United States. We will learn that traditional ballads migrated from the British Isles to Appalachia between the mid-1800’s and early 1900’s. We will identify Scottish and Irish songs that became widely played in Appalachia in the early 1900’s. By examining the early recordings of country artists such as the Carter Family, Ernest Stoneman, and Jimmie Rogers, we will discover how musicians adapted songs originating in the British Isles. As we move to the 1930’s, we will learn about the impact of the Great Depression on country music and examine the origin of bluegrass music through pioneers like Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers. We will trace how early recordings influenced developments in country and bluegrass music up until 1960. Recorded songs, videos, and live music will help us understand and enliven the history of country and bluegrass music.

Recommended Reading: Ritchie, F., & Orr, D. (2021). Wayfaring strangers: The musical voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia, 2nd Ed. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

How does DNA reshape our understanding of ancestry and identity in the Americas? In this course, we will explore genetic genealogy through early contact between European and Indigenous peoples, using the New Mexico DNA Project as a case study. We will examine Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, Indigenous haplogroups, and the Spanish castas system. We will consider the ethical and political implications of DNA testing and the limits of what genetic evidence can, and cannot, tell us about race and belonging.

This Osher Online course, offered through the Osher National Resource Center, lets you learn with fellow lifelong learners nationwide, guided by a world-class expert. OSHER ONLINE COURSES ARE NON-REFUNDABLE.