Memoirs: Classics and Classics-To-Be

Description

What makes memoirs tick? How is it that one memoir moves us more than another? How revealing is a memoir of the author as well as of the "characters"? How do memoirists draw us into the eventfullness of their inner lives? How do their personal trajectories say something about their social milieu? 

We omit political memoirs. We treat writers who, famous or not, focus on their personal lives—their intimate and their professional relationships and, especially, the linkages between the two.  For all their diversity, the memoirs selected here have a common thread: how adventitious happenings shape lives into something like a coherent venture. 

In a nutshell, the rationale of this SDG is comparison-and-contrast. We are less concerned with singular, recurrent themes. We are on the lookout for divergent stories and sensibilities, and for the mix of rawness and artfulness, that the best of the genre draws forth. We do not reach for an over-arching perspective.

Weekly Topics

1. Maya Angelou [1951 -2014], I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Chapters 1 - 19.

2. Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Chapters 20 - 36.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896 – 1940], The Crack-Up (Penguin, 1965), 54 pp. The book includes "Echoes of the Jazz Age" (pp. 9 - 19), "My Lost City" (pp. 20 - 31) "Ring" (pp. 32 - 38), "The Crack-Up" (pp. 39 -  56), and "Early Success," (pp. 57 - 63).

4. Jill Ker Conway [1934 - 2018], The Road from Coorain.  Conway grew up on a sheep farm in Australia and finally became President of Smith College. Chapters 1 - 5.

5. Conway, The Road from Coorain, Chapter 6 – 9.

6. Philip Roth [1933 - 2018], Patrimony: A True Story (1991), pp. 3 -110. This account of the aging and final illness of Roth's father won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

7. Roth, Patrimony, pp. 111 - 240.

8. Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates [1975 - ], Between the World and Me (2015), pp. 3 - 176. Written in the form of letters to his teenage son, this memoir of growing up in West Baltimore, education at Howard University and beyond, is a follow-up to The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and the Unlikely Road to Manhood (2005), Part I, pp. 1-71.

9. Coates. Between the World and Me, Part II, pp. 72-152.

10. Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet (2010) pp. 1- 110.

11. Judt, The Memory Chalet, pp. 111-226

12. James Baldwin [1924 – 1987], Notes Of A Native Son (1955).

13. Eve Babitz [1943-], Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. (1977), records her "life-long love affair with the cultural milieu of Los Angeles."  Gossip and creativity on steroids. pp.  3-90.

14. Babitz,  Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A., pp. 91-178.

Bibliography

See the list of readings, with full bibliography, under weekly topics above.

A Fresh Look at the New Deal Era and its Impact

Description

We invite you to join us to look at the US between 1933 and 1950.  The standard narratives, which we have all read, view the events of the period through a national lens, as if the country was isolated from all other countries. What these narratives overlook is that the US was one of many players in a global economy; what happened in the US affected in the rest of the world, and what happened outside the US affected the Roosevelt administration.   

For the people who lived at the time, there was no pre-ordained outcome, and the entire period is permeated with uncertainty and fear about the future. Studying this period of American history presents us with themes that will thread throughout the SDG: (1) the immense societal changes wrought by the crises in the period; (2) how the United States’ “original sin” continued to shape governance in both the New Deal and WWII legislation; (3) the exchanges between the US and other countries in crafting the New Deal; (4) the change in the US international standing, as by the late 1930s as it became the shining example of preserving and reconciling democracy and capitalism; (5) how the New Deal built the scaffolding for the new world order that emerged from WWII.

By 1950, the US had authored a new world order that created a stable and prosperous world (in the west). In the process, Americans had changed radically since 1933, especially with regard of their relationship to the state and with regard to the country’s role in the new world.  

Join us as we explore familiar territory with fresh eyes.  

Weekly Topics

1. Overview of the period

2. The US in the world – part 1

3. The first hundred days

4. The US in the world – part 2

5. A different America: The South

6. The Second New Deal

7. A different look at the Second New Deal

8. Isolation

9. Inching to war

10. The US at War: Overview

11. US Production at War

12. The Home Front

13. Post War

14. Legacy

Bibliography

Core Books: 

• Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time by Ira Katznelson, 2013.  

• The New Deal: A Global History by Kirin Klaus Patel, 2016.

• Freedom from Fear: The Americans in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy, 1998.

Short Stories on the Wild Side: George Saunders

Description

George Saunders is a contemporary writer offering piercing insight into our modern culture and our private longings. We will explore his world of funny, scary, subversive, magical, surreal, sometimes sad, unforgettable short stories. Saunders has written more than twenty short stories for The New Yorker and won the 2017 Man-Booker prize. He is a Professor at Syracuse University.

Weekly Topics

1. Sea Oak, and Winky, both from Pastoralia, and Sticks, from Tenth of December.

2. Pastoralia, from Pastoralia, and Al Roosten, from Tenth of December.

3. Victory Lap, and Escape from Spiderhead, from Tenth of December.

4. The Semplica Girl Diaries, and Puppy, from Tenth of December.

5. Tenth of December and Home, from Tenth of December.

6. Jon, from The New Yorker, Jan 27, 2003, and Mother’s Day, from The New Yorker, Feb 1, 2016.

7. Who are All These Trump Voters, from The New Yorker, July 4, 2016, and Love Letter, from The New Yorker, March 30, 2020.

Bibliography

• Jon, The New Yorker Jan 27, 2003, available free online at Openculture.com

• Mothers day, The New Yorker, Feb 1, 2016, and Love Letter, The New Yorker, March 30, 2020

• Pastoralia by George Saunders, Riverhead Books, 2000.

• The Tenth of December by George Saunders, Random House, 2013.

Five Female Abstract Expressionists and Their World

Description

Gabriel focuses on five of the female abstract expressionist painters who helped introduce a revolutionary international school of painting located in New York City. Immersing them in their milieu, limning a vivid cultural history, Gabriel reminds us that male superiority infected every aspect of the post-World War II United States. Determined to be painters in their own right, Krasner, De Kooning, Hartigan, Mitchell, and Frankenthaler refused to play second fiddle to their husbands and lovers, and they fought tenaciously for their identities as artists. In doing so, they altered art and society. Gabriel's in-depth look at these women and their struggles provides a wonderful new look at the United States, 1928-59.

Weekly Topics

1. Introduction, Prologue, and "Lee" (chapters 1-3)

2. "Elaine" (chapters 4-5) and "Art in War" (chapters 6-8)

3. "Art in War" (chapters 9-12)

4. "The Turning Point" (chapters 13-18)

5. "The Turning Point" (chapter 19) and "Grace" (chapters 20-23)

6. "Grace" (chapters 24-25) and "Helen" (chapters 26-27)

7. "Helen" (chapter 28) and "Joan" (chapters 29-31)

8. "Oh, to Leave a Trace" (chapters (32-35)

9. "Discoveries of Heart and Hand" (chapters 36-39)

10. "Discoveries of Heart and Hand" (chapters 40-42)

11. "Five Women"{ (chapters 43-45)

12. "The Rise and the Unraveling" (chapters 46-48)

13. "The Rise and Unraveling" (chapters 49-51)

14. "The Rise and Unraveling" (chapters 52-53) and Epilogue

Bibliography

Mary Gabriel, Ninth Street Women -- Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art

America's Funniest Writers

Description

Hoping to raise our mood during difficult times, we propose to read many of our country’s best humorists.

Andy Borowitz, “America’s satire king”, a nationally known comedian and comic writer has edited selections from The 50  Funniest American Writers in an anthology from the Library of America.  Each participant will introduce us to two or three authors and their work, with recommendations for further reading. 

 Included is a Who’s Who of comic writers, including Mark Twain, James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Nora Ephron, and Dave Barry. Included are lesser known pieces from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Lampoon, and The Onion.

There will be lots to learn and plenty of laughs.

Weekly Topics

Participants will select two or three writers from our core book, lead discussions on the short stories included therein, and introduce us to the authors and their other, more extensive works. We will discuss at least two authors each week.

Bibliography

The 50 Funniest American Writers: ,
Andy Borowitz (Editor) Published 2011 by Library of America

The Silk Road: Looking at Central Eurasia

Description

It was on the Silk Road that the East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions.  From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century, we will examine how the West has always been linked to the East.

Beckwith describes the great Eurasian empires: Scythians, Huns, Turks, Tibetians, Chinggis Khan and the Mongols and the cultural and economic life of Central Eurasia.  The Indo-European migration from the region also affected Greco-Roman, Slavic, Germanic, Persian, and Indian languages and civilizations.

This book and our SDG will place Central Eurasia into a world historical framework.

Weekly Topics

1. Introduction to the Silk Road and its Peoples

2. First Regional Empire Period in Eurasia

3. Material culture; Technology and Trade

4. Revolutions and Rebellions; 

5. Art and Architecture along the Silk Road

6. Caves of 1,000 Buddhas in Dunhuang

7. Third Regional Empire 

8. Technology and Trade – Metalworking; Silk making; Papermaking

9. Littoral Commerce

10. Music Along the Silk Road

11. Religions of the Silk Road  - 2 presentations

12. Travelers, Pilgrims and Explorers Along the Silk Road

13. Modern Archaeologists and Treasure Hunters

14. Slaves and Barbarians

15. Images of The Silk Road and the Future of The Silk Road

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/10/01/seven-years-into-chinas-belt-and-road/

Bibliography

CORE READING:  

• *Christopher Beckwith Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Present. (Princeton University Press, 2009) 

• *Susan Whitfield Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: The Material Culture of the Silk Road (UC Press, 2018)

• *Frances Wood. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia (UC Press, 2002)

• NHK Silk Road – 12 videos by Chinese-Japanese television

SUGGESTED READINGS:  

• Peter Frankopan The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Bloomsbury, 2015)

• Peter Hopkirk Foreign Devils on the Silk Road (London, 1980) 

• James Millward The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2013)

• Marco Polo. Travels

American Public Schools/Higher Education: What Changes Should We Make?

Description

My household has always been filled with education.  My Dad served as a superintendent of schools and principal as well as boys' counselor.  In addition, he taught world and American history, typewriting, band and orchestra.  In my college, I gravitated to business education because of a fine high school business teacher I admired.  After bachelor's and master's in business education, I taught my first junior high school class in typewriting to 275 ninth graders every two days.  After that experience, I ended up teaching high school business law, business math, shorthand and typewriting.  In the meantime, I was attracted to doctoral work in business education and a minor in higher education.  That resulted in struggling with a dissertation on "Automated Data Processing Concepts for High School Business Students."  Three more college teaching jobs followed with courses taught in office management, introduction to business, records management, shorthand, typewriting, elementary accounting, seminar in data processing education, analysis of communications in business, word processing management (started one of the first courses in the nation), office systems analysis, and University 100 (First-time college students).  I can proudly say 45+ years have been spent in the teaching profession.  

Everyone has an opinion on how public/higher education can be improved.  We hear how our students cannot read or write after graduating from high school.  We find students who have few marketable skills for computer-enhanced environments.  Our children are exposed to gun violence, drug availability, and gender and racial inequalities.  Surveys of global education show American public education lagging in 27th place.     

Higher education has also received considerable criticism for wealthy parents and celebrities who will do anything to get their children into Ivy League or well-known universities.  With the Covid-19 Pandemic still continuing, questions are being asked whether college students are getting a traditional college education by virtual learning.   Although our universities are world class, student debt accrued to attend these universities is now over one trillion dollars.  In addition to financial and curriculum concerns.  Will college brick and mortar buildings begin to disappear or become functional at a slower pace?  Will the traditional lecture be replaced with newer technological ways to present information in a faster, cheaper manner?  Will the tuition rates and college costs have to be adjusted to accommodate virtual learning and soaring costs of maintaining building, paying faculty, administrators, and staff, and keeping research programs solvent?  

This S/DG will explore the "crises" in both forms of education today, learn about ideas that are being proposed by educators and others, and enjoy meaningful dialogue to define the problems and suggest solutions.  We will discuss both the rational and the moral sides of these issues.

There is probably no other single issue that is as important to America's future as the education of our young.  

Each class meeting will begin with a 10-minute discussion of a current news event in public and higher education.

Weekly Topics

1. Overview of American Higher Education.

2. Overview of American Public (K-12) Education, Layperson’s Guide for Involved Teachers, Students. And Parents

3. Teacher Bashing, Student Test Scores, Budget Cuts

4. Violence in the Classroom, Mike’s Case, Accountability Systems. Impact of Nation at Risk

5. Bullying, Truancy, Prediction-Reliance Policy, The Fallacy of Great Schools, Misuse of Data, Teacher Quality, What Passes for Science, Contextual Accountability

6. Failing to Be a Superperson, Importance of ESL, Destructive Idealism: Superteachers, Education Reform Movement, Teacher Cheating, No-Excuses Charter Schools, Fight for Academic Excellence

7. Black-hat Reformers, Merit Pay, Effect of Low-Income Poverty, Disrespect in the Classroom, Satisfaction in the Profession, Public Schools: Beyond Redemption, Mendacious School Reasoning.

8. Common Core State Standards, No Child Left Behind (G. Bush), Fiscal Strain of Public Schools, “Achievement/Opportunity Gaps”

9. Politically Powerless Parents and Inadequate Schools, State Funds Per Pupil, No-excuses Equality, The Failing Citizen, Nation at Risk 2?, Six Solutions

10. Skepticism about Civic Education in College Preparing Citizenry, Lasting Effect of Critical Thinking, Evaluating Social Media News, Preparing to Live in Interdependent World, Rationale for International Studies and Global Citizenship, Intercultural Competence, Issues of Study Abroad 

11. Standards of Ethical Behavior and Personal Responsibility in Colleges, Students' Beliefs about Ethics Working to Their Advantage (e.g. College Cheating), Growth of Moral Reasoning Courses, Transition Courses for High School to College (First-Year Students or e.g. University 100), Teaching Empathy in College, College Plagiarism (Academic Dishonesty), Teaching Conscientiousness (Work Ethic)

12. Personal Philosophy for College Students, Greater Health and Longevity, Seeking Help from Career Offices, Changing Student Values, Effect of Great Books Courses, Happiness Courses, Taking Smorgasbord of Courses Approach

13. Softer Skills: Teamwork, Resilience, Tolerance, and Creativity, Lifelong Learning, Prospects for Change, Research Universities vs. Comprehensive Universities, Community Colleges, Independent Colleges, Three Impediments: Research, Faculty Resistance, Leadership

14. Public Will Reforms Work? Slow Spread of Reform, Improving Educational Research, Incentives for Reform-Minded Leaders, Tenure and Persuading Faculties, Creating Teaching Faculty, Faculty Unionization, Graduate Education and Its Dilemma, Decisive Role of Faculties, Improving Confidence of Public

Bibliography

Core Books  

• Bok, Derek.  Higher Expectations:  Can Colleges Teach What They Need to Know in the 21st Century?  Princeton, New Jersey:  Princeton University Press, 2020.

• Kuhn, John.  Fear and Learning in America:  Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education.  New York:  Teachers College Press, Columbia, 2014.

Selected Bibliography 

• Bastedo, Michael N., Altbach, Philip G., and Patricia J. Gumport, eds.  American Higher Education in the 21st Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.  

• Callahan, David.  The Cheating Culture:  Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead.  Orlando, Florida:  Harcourt, Inc., 2004.

• Cohen, Arthur M., Florence B. Brawer, and Carrie B. Kisker.  The American Community College.  6th ed.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Brand, 2014. 

•  Eisner, George W.  The Arts and Creation of Mind. Harrisonburg, Virginia: R. R. Donnelly & Sons, 2002.  

• Ellis, John M.  The Breakdown of Higher Education: How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done. New York: Encounter Books, 2020.

• Goldstein, Dana.  The Teacher Wars:  A History of America's Most Embattled Profession.  New York:  Anchor Books, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2014.  

• Howard, Tyrone C.  Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools:  Closing the Achievement Gap in America's Classrooms.  New York:  Teachers College Press, Columbia, 2010.

• Kirp, David.  The College Dropout Scandal.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 2019.

• Lucas, Christopher J.  American Higher Education:  A History.  2d ed.  New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 

• Neem, Johann N.  Democracy's Schools:  The Rise of Public Education in America.  Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. 

• Noguera, Pedro A.  City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. New York and London: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2003.  

• Noddings, Nel.  Education and Democracy in the 21st Century.  New York and London:  Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2013.  

• Ravitch, Diane.  Reign of Error:  The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.  

• Spring, Joel.  The American School: From the Puritans to the Trump Era. 10th ed.   New York and London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.  

• Wexler, Natalie.  The Knowledge Gap:  The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--And How to Fix It.  New York:  Avery, Penguin Random House LLC, 2019.  

Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

Description

A scientific flood from psychology poured into economics and undermined its most basic premise.  The result was Behavioral Economics.  Inventing it won psychologist Daniel Kahneman a Nobel Prize.  We'll study it using his accessible, surprise-packed book.

Kahneman presents new understandings about how the mind works.  The brain has two ways of processing information, as if it had two separate systems.  One system is slow and goes step by step.  It does rational thinking.  The other system is fast and associative.  It provides an endless stream of responses made from memory and sensory associations.  We will study the many unexpected ways in which the two systems collide and interact.

Then we will explore why human statistical intuition is stunningly bad.  Why does the mind prefer to use substitutes, or heuristics, when simple statistics would give better answers?  Kahneman connects heuristics and fallacies to risk analysis, prediction, intuition, and human overconfidence for some important and remarkable results.  

We will even meet a new species--the Econ.  Econs are humanoids who don't have our fast, associative mental system with its behavioral quirks.  For centuries economists have used totally-rational Econs instead of humans to explain economic behavior.  Join us as we learn what happens when real humans at last enter the world of the economists.

This SDG is a repeat of Thinking About Behavioral Economics as offered in Winter 2013, with the same core book, Coordinator, and course plan.

Weekly Topics

Book Key Topics

Week Chapters

1. I, 1 Introduction; System 1 and System 2

2. 2, 3, 4 paying attention; lazy System 2; priming

3. 5, 6, 7 cognitive ease; intentional causality; "What You See Is All There Is"

4. 8, 9, 10 basic assessments; heuristic question; small samples yield extreme results

5. 11, 12, 13 anchoring; availability bias; availability cascade

6. 14, 15, 16 representativeness; conjunction fallacy; causal stereotypes

7. 17, 18 regression to the mean; intuitive predictions

8. 19, 20, 21 narrative fallacy; illusion of validity; statistical outcome prediction

9. 22, 23, 24 intuitive expertise; planning fallacy; the premortem

10. 25, 26, 27 expected utility theory; prospect theory; endowment effect

11. 28, 29, 30 loss aversion; the fourfold pattern; denominator neglect

12. 31, 32, 33 broad framing; disposition effect; preference reversals

13. 34, 35, 36 framing effects; the experiencing self and the remembering self; duration neglect

14. 37, 38, C experienced well-being; the focusing illusion; Conclusions

Bibliography

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2011

Jane Austen's Revolutionary Novels: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice

Description

This SDG will explore Jane Austen's early fiction and her debt to the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. After reading the sections of Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) that most heavily influenced Austen, we will look first at Austen's biography and her hilarious juvenilia, History of England and Love and Freindship (sic).  We will then read her first three novels in the order in which they were written, in the context of the social and political debates of her time concerning the education, roles and legal standing of women, the competing values of reason and sympathy, and the political demands of the French Revolution. We will also discuss the best film adaptations of these novels.

Weekly Topics

• Week 1. Wollstonecraft - selections from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (online)

• Week 2. Austen's Biography / History of England / Love and Freindship (sic)

• Weeks 3-4. Northanger Abbey

• Weeks 5-7. Sense and Sensibility

• Weeks 8 - Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee, with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett)

• Weeks 9-11 - Pride and Prejudice

• Week 12 - Pride and Prejudice (BBC, with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth)

Bibliography

Core books: Jane Austen, Juvenilia; Northanger Abbey; Sense and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice

Films are available online