OWLL Courses, Fall 2013 to the Present

 

FALL 2013

~Victim or Vixen?: How Colette Became a Great Writer, Gillian Gill

~Chopin: The Music and the Man, Dorothy Burstein

~World Calligraphy, Margaret Shepherd

~U.S.- China Relations, 1945-2013, Shiping Zheng

SPRING 2014

~Neuroscience for the Layperson, Barbara Beltz and Wellesley College Neuroscience Faculty

~Artists’ Books, Theresa Monaco

~Reading My Poems,  Tom Daley, Claire Keyes, Florence Ladd, Gavin Moses

~Vintage and Traditional Music of the British Isles and America, Jacqueline Schwab

FALL 2014

~Terrorism: Causes, Consequences and U.S. Response Options, Edith Flynn

~The Many Talents of Franz Liszt, Dorothy Burstein

~Love, Legacies, and Lear, Elizabeth Kenney

~The Real Wealth of Nations, Larry Prusak

SPRING 2015

~Poetry Workshop, Gavin Moses

~Who the Dickens? A Cultural History,  Tatiana Holway

~Neuroscience for the Layperson, Wellesley College Neuroscience Faculty

~Taking a Play from Page to Stage with the New Rep Theatre, Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

~Art of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Mary Newell DePalma

FALL 2015

~The Russians are Coming!, Dorothy Burstein

~Africa’s Exciting Future,  Robert Rotberg

~Shakespeare’s The Tempest: Weathering Storms, Elizabeth Kenney

~Nuclear Energy: What Does the Future Hold?, Nancy H. Kolodny

~Narrating the World, Larry Prusak

~How to Read a Poem, Tom Daley

SPRING 2016

~Making History: Flower Power in the Victorian World, Tatiana Holway

~Science Fiction and Philosophy, Chris Philips

~Astronomy: A Visual Tour of the Universe, Bruce Ward

~The New Jane Austen, Elizabeth Kenney

~Poetry Reading and Poetry Writing, Gavin Moses

~Discovering Design: Conceiving the World of the Play, Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

~Bach and Back, Laura Zoll

FALL 2016

~American Music Makers, Dorothy Burstein

~Why We Read Mysteries, Dan Cohen and Helen Cohen

~A Comical-Anecdotal History of Poetry in the English-Speaking World, Tom Daley

WINTER 2017

~Three Brecht Plays,  Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

SPRING 2017

~Poetry Reading: The Poetic Pulse, Gavin Moses

~Poetry Writing: Getting It Said, Gavin Moses

~Glimpsing the Molecular World, Nolan Flynn

~The Music of American Places, Margaret Ulmer

~The World’s Great Art Masterpieces,  Steve Kendall

~Parenting: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Jessica Bethoney

~Aspects of Wisdom, Larry Prusak

FALL 2017

~American Transcendentalism, Vincent Petronella

~Everyday Astronomy: Windows into the World Above Us, Bruce Ward

~The American Experience in World War I, Dan Breen

~Sex and Politics in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Elizabeth Kenney

~Dance Around the World, Peggy Wacks

~An Engagement with the Poetry of Pablo Neruda, Tom Daley

~Musical Trio: Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, Dorothy Burstein

WINTER 2018

~The Mind of a Director, Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

~The Invention of American Sound, Dorothy Burstein

SPRING 2018

~Art Photographs: 20th Century Greats, Steve Kendall

~Russia in My Life, Nicholas Daniloff with Mark Kramer

~For the Birds: The Amazing World of Ornithology, Bill Gette

~Memoir Writing: Creating a Written Snapshot, Christin Worcester

~History of Film: A Brief Exploration, Monika Raesch

~Posing with the Past: The Poetics of Loss, Gavin Moses

FALL 2018

~Standing Ajar: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson, Tom Daley

~Americans in Italy: Stories of Edith Wharton and Henry James, Vincent Petronella

~Music and the Mendelssohns, Dorothy Burstein

~Boy Plays Girl Plays Boy Plays Girl: Love in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Elizabeth Kenney

~Africa’s Promise: Twelve Critical Challenges, Robert Rotberg

~The Entertainer and the Invincible Eagle: Scott Joplin and John Philip Sousa, Margaret Ulmer

~Five Microbes That Changed the World, Mary Allen

WINTER 2019

~Introduction to Birdwatching and Feeding Backyard Birds,  Bill Gette

~Antonin Dvorak: From Bohemia to America and Back, Dorothy Burstein

~Arthur Miller’s Tragedies of the Common Man, Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

SPRING 2019

~Contemporary Asian Literature, Cammy Thomas

~The Earth’s Moon, Bruce Ward

~Memoir Writing: Creating a Written Snapshot, Christin Worcester

~The Vietnam You Never Knew, David Thomas

~On Leadership, Jay Kaufman

FALL 2019

~My Old Delicious Burdens: The Poetry of Walt Whitman, Tom Daley

~Madness, Murder, Revenge and Ghosts: Reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the 21st Century, Elizabeth Kenney

~Africa: Achieving Greatness in the 21st Century, Robert Rotberg

~Musical Trio: Johannes Brahms, Clara Wieck, and Robert Schumann, Dorothy Burstein

~Neuroscience: Brain, Mind and Memory, Wellesley College Faculty

WINTER 2020

~Introduction to Ornithology, Bill Gette

~Chopin, Dorothy Burstein

~Rethinking Ability and Disability in the Digital Age, David Rose

SPRING 2020: Courses scheduled but not offered because of the Covid 19  pandemic.  Many were offered later on Zoom.

~Climate Change and Energy Evolution: Will Team Humanity Step Up to Save the Planet?, Rae Andre

~Memoir Writing: Recreating a Moment in Time, Christin Worcester

~Looking for Life in All the Right Places, Bruce Ward

~A New Odyssey, Cammy Thomas

~Virginia Woolf:  Novelist, Essayist, Memoirist, Polemicist, Publisher, Madwoman? Does She Still Speak to Us Today?, Gillian Gill

SUMMER 2020 (ON ZOOM)

~Celebrating Nature and Culture (New England Habitats, Galápagos Islands, Copan Ruins, Bhutan), Bill Gette.  (Course offered gratis)

FALL 2020 (ON ZOOM)

~The Poetry of Sylvia Plath, Tom Daley

~Leadership for Change -- Africa, Robert Rotberg

~Chinese Emperors Then and Now, Carolyn Reeves

~A New Odyssey, Cammy Thomas

WINTER 2021 (ON ZOOM)

~Our Magnificent National Parks and Wildlife Refuges, Bill Gette

~The Artful Brain: Beauty at the Intersection of Art and Neuroscience, David Rose

SPRING 2021 (ON ZOOM)

~Virginia Woolf:  Novelist, Essayist, Memoirist, Polemicist, Publisher, Madwoman? Does She Still Speak to Us Today?, Gillian Gill

~Renaissance Musical Masterpieces, Laura Zoll

~The Power of Persuasion: Rank, Class, Money, Family (and Love) in Austen’s Persuasion, Elizabeth Kenney

FALL 2021 (ON ZOOM)

~Dylan Thomas, Tom Daley

~Ten Global Crises of Conflict, Robert Rotberg

~Long Live Chairman Mao! An Historical Appraisal of Mao Zedong, Caroline Reeves

~The Music of Duke Ellington: 50 Years of Artistic Excellence, Jeff Leonard

~Mrs. Dalloway, Cammy Thomas

WINTER 2022 (ON ZOOM)

~International Nature Adventures, Bill Gette

~Wider Than the Sky: Poetry in Your Brain, David Rose, Reggie Gibson, and Cammy Thomas.

~The Archaelogy and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Steven Stark-Reimer

~Four Oddball Novels by Muriel Spark, Gillian Gill

SPRING 2022 (ON ZOOM)

~The War in Ukraine (a “pop-up” course), Robert Rotberg

~Six Great Poets of the English Language, Cammy Thomas

~Let’s Go to a Musical, Brian O’Connell

~Free Speech Controversies in Public Schools, Jay Heubert

~Composers in Exile, Dorothy Burstein

FALL 2022 (Some in Zoom, some in person)

~Medieval Musical Masterpieces , Laura Zoll

~Living in the Along —Learning from the Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, Tom Daley

~Memoir Writing, Christin Worcester

~Challenges and Problem: South Africa and its Neighbors in an Era of Populism, Robert Rotberg

~Looking for Life in All the Right Places, Bruce Ward

WINTER 2023

~Judeophobia, Steven Stark-Reimer

~Wonders of New England Wildlife, Bill Gette

~Deep Diving into the Fictional World of Antonia Susan Drabble Byatt Duffy, aka. A.S. Byatt, Gillian Gill

~Portraits of an Artist’s Brain, David Rose, David Thomas, Johanna Branson

SPRING 2023

~Wildflowers and Birdwatching , Bill Gette

~The Mockingbird at Sixty,  Cammy Thomas

~Memoir Writing: Bringing the Past to the Present, Christin Worcester

~Xi’s Gotta Have It: History and Power in China, 221 BCE to the Present, Caroline Reeves

~Musical Trio: The Lives and Music of Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, Dorothy Burstein

~Loosing the Tethers of the World: The First Age of Space Exploration, 1957-66, Dan Breen

FALL 2023

~The Government of the Tongue: Appreciating the Poetry of Seamus Heaney,Tom Daley

~Emerson at Home, Rosalie David

~The Exploration of Africa: How Africa was opened up by David Livingstone, Richard Burton, other men, a few women, and Africans, Robert Rotberg

~Renaissance Music Masterworks, Laura Zoll

~Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice for our Time, Elizabeth Kenney

 

WINTER 2024

~Soft-Boiled but Laced with Cyanide: Detective Fiction from Poe and Conan Doyle to Horowitz and Cumberbatch, via Greene, Christie, Tey, and Sayers, Gillian Gill

~Georgia O’Keeffe: Artist and Icon, Nancy Scott

~ Making the Implicit Explicit: What Neuroscience Reveals About Controlling Our Unconscious Biases, David Rose

~Wildlife in Three Varations, Part One ,Bill Gette

SPRING  2024

~Sculpting Public Memory: The Statues of Boston and the Stories Behind Them, Dan Breen

~Corruption: What it is, Who Does it, Why it Matters, Robert Rotberg

~Wildlife in Three Variations, Part Two, Bill Gette

~Their Eyes Were Watching God, Cammy Thomas

~Appalachian Spring: Our American Treasure, Margaret Ulmer

~ Memoir Writing: Bringing the Past to the Present, Chris Worcester

FALL 2024

~The Killing Fields of Africa, Robert Rotberg

~The Colors of the Cosmos, Bruce Ward

~“If you should dip your hand in”: The Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, Tom Daley

~This Year’s Key US Supreme Court Cases, Doug Wilkins

~The Russians are Coming!  Dorothy Burstein

~Shakespeare’s Othello: Evil, Persuasion, Love, and Language, Elizabeth Kenney

WINTER 2025

~What Makes Sondheim Great, Gail Leondar-Wright

~For the Love of the Movies: An Exploration into Time Periods of Cinema History, Monika Raesch

~Three Exotic Trips: Iceland, Bhutan, Belize, Bill Gette

~Baroque Music: Brilliant and Beautiful, Laura Zoll

~JMW Turner’s Slave Ship: From the Origins of His Sea Paintings to the Woman Who Brought it to Boston, Nancy Scott

~The Three Bronte Sisters: Romantic Realists, Gillian Gill

 

SPRING,  2025

~Unraveling the Secrets of Chromosomes, Claire O’Connor

~History Through Rock: 1950’s through 1980’s, Terrie Vincent

~ Maturation and the Human Brain: Origins of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, David Rose

~The Road to Revolution: 1770-1775,  Dan Breen,

~ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: An Astonishing Tale in Verse, Cammy Thomas

FALL 2025

~Notable Supreme Court Cases of 2025, Douglas Wilkins

~A Poem is an Event: The Poetry of Robert Lowell, Tom Daley

~Art, Politics, and Propaganda: The Case of Richard the Third, Elizabeth Kenney

~Fixing the Wars of the World and Their Humanitarian Crises: Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, Taiwan, and Africa, Robert Rotberg

~Music’s Well-Kept Secret: Women Composers in the 18th, 19th, and Early 20th Century, Dorothy Burstein