The Iliad

Almost 3000 years ago a Greek poet sung one of the greatest stories ever told and it remains the beginning of Western Literature. It took the singer over 15,000 lines of hexameter verse to tell the epic story of Greece vs. Troy. Romance, vengeance, politics, religion and a ten-year war, ostensibly because a woman left her husband for another man. Characters like Helen of Troy and the Greek hero Achilles have affected literature, art, and film down to the present day. With a cast of thousands, gods, heroes, and lots of blood on the battlefield, the Iliad is an astonishing panorama of pre-literate society in the eastern Mediterranean. Even Alexander the Great is said to have slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow while he was on campaign.

We now understand that the putative “author,” Homer, most likely began an illiterate singer who entertained Greek nobles with sections of his enormous creation. Only its oral beginnings can explain the method of composition, its use of repetition of scenes and long battle descriptions, the frequent formulas (“winged words”), and the poet’s use of epithets attached to individual characters.

We will read Robert Fagles’ translation of the Iliad as our core book, and consider a variety of themes as we proceed through the epic. We have suggested some topics for the weekly presenters, though of course you may find other interesting elements to explore including contemporary ramifications of the story.

Islamic Empires: The Cities That Shaped Civilization From Mecca to Dubai

Following the core book, each week we will discuss a different city that was at the core of an Islamic empire after Islam came into existence in the 7th Century. We will cover a remarkably wide geographical area: from the western reaches of Islamic empires (Cordoba in southern Spain, Fez in Morocco and Tripoli in Libya), to the Middle East (Mecca, Damascus, Cairo, Beirut and Jerusalem), Baghdad (in the heart of ancient Mesopotamia), to one of the most important cities in world history (Constantinople or Istanbul), and further east to Iran (Isfahan), Afghanistan (Kabul), Central Asia (Samarkand in Uzbekistan) and the Mughal Empire in India, and we will end with futuristic cities of Dubai and Doha in the Persian Gulf.

We will study the expansion of Islam by the sword, by religious appeal and by cultural influence; we will see the glorious cities of Islam at their peak, when their trade and economic power, culture, urban design, science, scholarship, art and architecture outshone those of Europe. We’ll cover Islamic dynasties that shaped world history, like the Umayyad, Abassid, Timurid, Fatimid, Safavid, Mamluk, and Ottoman, as well as the religious sects of Shia, Sufi, Sunni, Wahlabi and others. We’ll also study the incredible architecture of cities such as Baghdad, Isfahan and Cordoba, and a remarkable array of individuals, including those who formed Islamic dynasties and empires, like al Mansur (the Abassid Dynasty), Ismail I (the Safavid) and Babur and Akbar (the Mughal Empire), as well as conquerors like Tamerlane and Saladin, scholars, city-planners, artists,  Barbary pirates, religious fundamentalists, and modern businessmen of incredible vision.

This SDG offers a different look at Islamic history, its rise and decline, one at odds with our Eurocentric view of history and Islam. 

Although our core book is organized by city and century, we will also include other material that will illuminate more generally the history of Islam and the Islamic empires, such as Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.  Please note that this course does not cover all of the history of Islam. For example, Islam in Southeast Asia is outside of our purview.

Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941

“Nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin’s desk” say reviewers of Stephen Kotkin’s award-winning Stalin: Waiting for Hitler 1929-1941, volume two of an expected three volume masterpiece on this most complicated man and his place in the history. Just as in his first volume, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928, which we are using as the core book in a spring 2022 SDG, Kotkin presents a history of Russia in the world and a history of Stalin in Russia.

Stalin’s desk was in what has been called Stalin's Little Corner in the Imperial Senate. Stalin's wing had its own entrance and a special door separating it from the other offices. It was 1600 square feet and had a concealed escape shaft leading to the basement. It was from here that Stalin micromanaged Russian culture and conducted foreign policy in every corner of the world.

We will locate Stalin in the context of European and Asian history during the lead up to World War II. With Japan and Germany sat on either side of the Soviet Union, Stalin felt himself encircled by enemies. To prepare, he industrialized and militarized at a breathtaking and murderous speed.

By the 1930s he was arresting and murdering an immense number of citizens: kulaks, anti-collectivization peasant, loyal followers, officers and secret police and party stalwarts. With a stroke of his pen – or, for that matter, a general or veiled directive to a devoted underling – he snuffed out and erased all trace of thousands of lives on a daily basis. Kotkin pinpoints three central episodes for Russian and world history from 1929-41: the 1929 collectivization of agriculture, the mass terror of 1936-38, and the 1939 non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany that had world-wide impacts.

Joseph Stalin was a human being, a dedicated Communist, and a dictator. He embodied global communism and the Eurasian multinational state. ‘Murderous’ and ‘mendacious’ do not begin to describe the man. Yet, he galvanized millions and led the Russian people to an astounding victory and national greatness.

While the core book is of formidable length it is an absorbing read. The author maintains a laser focus on Stalin’s inner world – what he knew, what he did not know, and what he chose to ignore - and provides the reader with startling insight into a man whose vision and decisions – often shockingly arbitrary – impacted millions and changed world history. Custom-made for an SDG, the book has 14 chapters, each averaging 65-70 pages.

History and Geopolitics: The United States and the World

We have largely been taught that human history and thus world politics are largely the function of competing ideologies and religions. In fact, "geophysical configurations" is as much a factor if not more so. In this SDG we will look at two controversial geopolitical theories of the United States and the world as we try to discover the truths about the United States and its role in the world past, present and future. Are we in fact the "shining city on the hill" or a country in just the right place in the right time. And if this is so, what can we predict about the future. In The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan and The Accidental Super Power by Peter Zeihan we are introduced to two political geographers who have used their considerable insight in assessing our historical past and political future based upon geopolitical analysis. You may not always agree with them but they will certainly give us all room for thought.

The Gershwin Brothers: Their Lives and Their Music

“Rhapsody in Blue,” “An American in Paris,” “Porgy and Bess,” were some of over 500 compositions created by George Gershwin (1896 – 1937) during his very brief life. What was his path from New York city song plugger to Hollywood composer of film scores? His older brother Ira (1896 – 1983) collaborated with him to write the lyrics for songs like, “I Got Rhythm, “Embraceable You,” and “Someone to Watch Over Me.” The last song they wrote together, "Our Love is Here to Stay," is perhaps symbolic of their partnership. Ira continued his lyricist journey after the death of his brother with composers like Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen. What motivated two Brooklyn born brothers with Russian Jewish heritage to compose such innovative music? The core book, The Gershwin Years: George and Ira, is both the definitive biography of the Gershwin brothers and a lavishly illustrated chronicle of the American era their music and lyrics embodied. With the help of YouTube, we will be enjoying many of their musical works each week.

The Story of Language

We want to study the overview of language, its history, varieties, forms and functions. The list of chapters gives only a partial overview of the subject we will study. They also include: the sounds of language, words, nonlinguistic systems of communication, evolution of language, language and literature, and many more (altogether about 50 subjects). The modern spoken languages comprise about four weeks of study (out of 14) but the text is peppered with examples in all tongues.

The text by Mario Pei is a grand oldie. It is nevertheless the most comprehensive and the best-balanced introduction to the study of language, as well as very readable and understandable. The book is not a scholarly text on the theory of linguistics. This is a lively and entertaining book on language, well written and stimulating.

Innocents Abroad: Two Novels by Graham Greene

Graham Greene is known for his novels about expatriates with hazy moral values faced with situations that require them to make a stand.  Two Greene novels, "The Comedians" set in Haiti under Duvalier, and "The Quiet American" set in Vietnam in the period between the French and American wars allow us to contrast the different settings and characters and the choices they ultimately make.  They also illuminate Greene's views about the relationship between poor countries and the developed world and his ambivalent feelings about Americans in the world.  

We will read each novel and follow it with a screening of the related Hollywood film(s).   The films are "The Comedians" (1967) and the two versions of The Quiet American (1958 and 2002). The two Quiet American versions are far, far apart, showing the evolution of Hollywood's attitudes about America and her place in the world.

In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States

In 2012 the cities of Los Angeles, Quebec and Mexico City joined forces to create a stunning retrospective about "The Women of Surrealism".  This show would travel to all three cities over the course of 2 years.  The curators of this travelling show knew that these women have been overlooked, undervalued and even disdained by the established "Art World."  So they set out to rectify this glaring oversight by creating one of the most comprehensive and educational exhibits focussing solely on the women of Surrealism. Our course in deeply indebted to the foresight of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City and the Musee National des Beaux-Arts in Quebec.

My goal for this SDG is to illuminate the passion, vision and intensity of these women who created art that explored their own dreams, their own personal fears and their own prophecies.  Surrealism for these women was their chosen path to explore self-knowledge and identity.  Some of these artists are well-known in America, while some are cultural icons in their country of birth.  We will travel through North America and Europe; meeting such artists as Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Lee Miller,Toyen and Leonora Carrington.  Our studies will cover the painters, photographers, and mixed-media artists who showed us their visions "In Wonderland".

The Ongoing Problem with Rights in the United States

Professor of Law Jamal Greene thinks we are living through an explosion of claims of rights, which he labels "rightsism." Rights claiming has become, he writes, a vital national pastime. He argues that the Founding Fathers did not intend for there to be such a flood, and that they did not intend for the judiciary to become the arbiter of what is a right and what is not. They intended for state and local institutions to protect the few "inalienable" rights that were then recognized. But slavery and Jim Crow laws upended that vision and introduced the concept of absolute rights as a way of protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Greene believes that there are no absolute rights and that actual non-absolute rights require negotiation and mediation to resolve. Greene reinterprets the meaning of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, reviews key court cases, and critiques judge-made rights, which decree who holds rights rather than asking what holding a right means. Judges play a zero-sum game, dividing people into those who have rights and those who do not. Greene examines the effect of this concept of rights in the areas of race, gender, disability, abortion, affirmative action, and campus speech. By pretending that one right or another is or is not of constitutional significance,"rightsism" avoids the natural state of conflicting rights and the need to mediate between them.