H umanities
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the
Monster He Created
Lynne Agress
Session II
Wednesday, 9:30 (begins April 13)
Fee: $65
F
rankenstein, begun by Mary
Shelley on a stormy night
in Lake Geneva, Switzerland,
in 1816, is much more than
a novel about the creation of
a monster. It is also a timeless
story with multiple themes—
themes of isolation, discrimination, cloning, overreaching
and more. Although early critics called it “horrible, disgusting and absurd,” Frankenstein
lived on, fascinating readers
and theater audiences for 200
years. In this course, we will discuss, in addition to the text of Frankenstein and its many themes, Mary Shelley’s amazing life as the
daughter of 18th century feminist author, Mary Wollstonecraft,
and social critic and philosopher, William Godwin. Mary Shelley
was also the wife of Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Prior
to the course, participants are encouraged to read Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein, any edition. You also may want to read Charlotte
Gordon’s recently published Romantic Outlaws.
Lynne Agress, Ph.D., has taught literature and writing at Johns
Hopkins University, Goucher College, Smith College, and the University of Maryland. She currently teaches in the Odyssey program at
Johns Hopkins. She is the author of The Feminine Irony and Working
with Words as well as numerous articles in magazines and newspapers. Her principal area of study for her doctorate was the Romantic
period in 19th-century English literature, which accounts for her interest in Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.
Free Will and Responsibility - Cancelled
Joe Morton
Session I
Monday, 11 a.m. (begins March 7)
Fee: $65
A
re human beings
free or determined? Are they, or
are they not, responsible for their actions?
If they are responsible,
how do they acquire
that responsibility?
These questions have
been considered by
philosophers, theologians, and numerous
others in diverse cultures throughout history. The instructor will suggest first that all adult human beings have a limited but very important range of freedom to make decisions and act on them, whatever
their circumstances, and that free will and responsibility develop
continually in the life of each person. But he believes that free will
and responsibility are crucial elements to societies, as well as to
individuals. This course will proceed from an overview of conflicting views about freedom and responsibility, through a discussion
of extreme rationalism (philosopher Benedict Spinoza), to extreme
empiricism (philosopher David Hume), to the distinctive position of
the American pragmatist philosopher, William James. The course will
end with a focus on group/social responsibility, e.g., it will examine
ways in which persons of higher rank within institutions are often
shielded from the responsibility they bear. The course will consist
primarily of lecture but there will also be a high component of discussion. Questions and comments will be strongly encouraged.
Joe Morton, Ph.D., emeritus professor of philosophy at Goucher
College, came to Baltimore in 1959 to study philosophy at the Johns
Hopkins University, where he completed his doctorate with a dissertation, “The Development of Plato’s Theory of Sense Perception.” He
taught philosophy at Goucher, 1963–2005, where he also founded the
Program for Peace Studies, which he headed for ten years. Issues of
free will, determinism, and responsibility are standard themes in many
of the courses he has taught. This is Morton’s 10th course for Osher.
Visit our website
www.towson.edu/osher
9
H umanities
Cultural Manifestations of the
Black Experience
The Easter Narratives in the New Testament
Floyd W. Hayes, III
Sessions I and II
Thursday, 11 a.m. (begins March 10)
Fee: $130 ($65 for each session)
Sessions I and II
Wednesday, 11 a.m. (begins March 9)
Fee: $130 ($65 for each session)
T
his course examines the evolution
and dimensions of
African-American
public culture, past
and present, derived
from the African
encounter with cultural trauma of the
Atlantic Slave Trade, chattel slavery, economic exploitation, antiblack racism, and white supremacy, as severe disruptions and interruptions of traditional African culture. We will investigate the
transformation of captured Africans to the social death of chattel
slaves—white violence, slave consciousness, slave religion, and
existential questions of black identity. Examples of black public
culture will be drawn from philosophy, racial identity, music, literature, media, sports, and other genres to demonstrate images of
black Americans across diverse domains. We will explore the historical relationship and political meaning of African-American cultural experiences to the dominant white American culture through
a critical examination of popular representations of black people.
This course is an exercise in critical thinking about the relations of
power and culture.
Floyd W. Hayes, III, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer and coordinator
of programs and undergraduate studies in the Center for Africana
Studies at Johns Hopkins University. During the fall 2008 semester,
he was scholar-in-residence in African and African American Studies and the African American Cultural Center at Towson University.
He earned his Ph.D. in Government and Politics at the University of
Maryland. Hayes received an M. A. in African Area Studies from the
University of California at Los Angeles and a B. A. in French and Political Science from North Carolina Central University. He received
the Certificat d’Etudes in French from the University of Paris. Hayes’s
research and publications focus on Africana Studies, politics, philosophy, and urban politics and policy. His teaching and research interests include Africana politics and political philosophy, urban politics
and public policy, jazz and politics, and black popular culture.
10
Father Bob Albright
T
he catalytic event/mystery that
sparked Christianity was the
resurrection of Jesus from the
dead and his exaltation at the
right hand of God. This Easter
mystery created a force in the
ancient Western world that has
developed into present-day global
consciousness and a worldwide
religion. Of the three central mysteries in Christianity, the Easter
mystery remains the one that goes
beyond the boundaries of Christianity since all life will die. The hope
of an afterlife, the dreams of a heaven and resting in peace haunt the
minds of the conscious world. Studying this Easter mystery will help
us uncover some essential questions of life. As we explore the language used by the writers of the New Testament, we hope to gain a
better understanding of what happened to Jesus and what promises
are the basis of Christian belief. We will raise some of the essential
questions (and contradictions) that this mystery poses, investigate
the earliest Christian faith formulae found in the New Testament,
examine the stories of encounters with Jesus after his death, and
end “at the tomb of Jesus” in our final class. For believers and nonbelievers alike, this in-depth study will be an awakening to the beauty
of the literature of the Bible, the use of symbolism, and the faith
of those who wrote the narratives of this central event/mystery of
Christianity. Please bring a Bible (any version) with you to every class.
Note: This is a repeat of the course offered last in spring
2012.
Rev. Robert E. Albright is a retired Catholic Priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He served as the Catholic Campus Minister at Towson University for the 26 years before his retirement in July 2006.
Through teaching a scholarly approach to the Bible over the past
40 years, Father Bob has explored greater interfaith issues at the
Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies of Baltimore. He has studied twice in Israel at the International Center for Holocaust Studies,
and has been to Israel more than 15 times leading study tours and
retreats and doing private research in Biblical sites and studying the
Palestinian/Israeli situation. At the moment, Father Bob is engaged
in numerous Catholic/Jewish endeavors including a funded program
to educate Jewish and Catholic high school students in each other’s
tradition.
H umanities
Introduction to Jewish Mysticism: Kabbalah
The Gun Debate: Freedom in an
Armed Society?
Sessions I and II
Thursday, 9:30 a.m. (begins March 10)
Fee: $130 ($65 for each session)
Firmin DeBrabander
Rabbi Floyd Herman
S
ince the Middle Ages,
Jewish mysticism known
as Kabbalah has been a very
important part of Jewish life.
This course will introduce
some of the history and
ideas of Kabbalah. In contemporary life, it has taken
on a new role in pop culture,
which sometimes does not
reflect the serious and important spiritual and intellectual contributions of the
tradition. We will briefly explore the history of Kabbalah, including pre-Kabbalistic
Jewish Mysticism, early Kabbalah and some of the major themes
and ideas of Kabbalah. We will look at its major movements: Spain
in the 13th century, Safed in the 16th century, and Eastern Europe
in the 18th century. Finally we will read together a few Kabbalistic
texts, including the Zohar, Lurianic and Hasidic texts. The class will
be primarily lecture but discussion will be encouraged. Hopefully,
participants will begin to understand Kabbalah: Jewish mysticism,
its theology and its place in contemporary Jewish life.
Floyd Herman is the rabbi emeritus of Har Sinai Congregation in
Owings Mills, where he served as senior rabbi for more than 20 years.
He has been active in the Baltimore community for more than 30 years.
Rabbi Herman has taught at many colleges and universities and continues to teach in adult education programs in Baltimore. His special
interests are Judaism, religious studies, and history. He loves golf, classical music (especially opera), reading, learning, and teaching adults.
He has been a tour guide at Camden Yards. In 2006, he taught a course
on “God, Torah, Israel” for the Auburn Society (now Osher Institute).
We welcome him back to our program, both as member and teacher.
NO CLASS CONFIRMATIONS WILL BE SENT. YOU WILL BE
INFORMED ONLY IF YOU DID NOT GET INTO A CLASS.
Session II
Monday, 9:30 a.m. (begins April 11)
Fee: $65
T
his course will focus on the current gun rights debate and why it
proves so rancorous in America. We will consider the end state that
the gun rights lobby has in mind for us and whether that end state is
compatible with freedom and democracy. During our four weeks, we
will cover the following four topics: 1) the culture of fear in the U.S. as
perpetuated by the news and entertainment media, 2) guns, revolution, and tyranny—the historical context of the Second Amendment,
3) guns, speech and assembly: has our gun culture threatened the
First Amendment? 4) democracy and the power of non-violence. It is
not required, but participants will benefit from reading the instructor’s recently published book, Do Guns Make Us Free? Yale University Press, 2015.
Firmin DeBrabander, Ph.D., is professor of philosophy at the
Maryland Institute College of Art where he specializes in moral and
political philosophy. His first book was entitled Spinoza and the Stoics. He has written editorials for The Atlantic, the New York Times,
and the Baltimore Sun.
PREVIEW OF
SPRING 2016 CLASSES
Thursday, January 21 • 1 p.m.
Central Presbyterian Church
PLEASE NOTE ON THE CALENDAR INSIDE THE FRONT
COVER OF THIS CATALOG THE COURSES FOR
WHICH YOU HAVE REGISTERED.
11
H umanities
The Many Voices of Feminism
Jo-Ann Pilardi
Eric Stewart
Session I
Tuesday, 11 a.m. (begins March 8)
Fee: $65
T
he contemporary
world is full of
feminist issues! This
course will introduce
students to the feminist movement and
some of its theories,
with a focus on
American feminism.
We will begin with
the 18th century foremother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and move
through the American women’s movement of the 19th century to
women’s suffrage in 1920. A sea change took place in the 1960s
and 1970s, starting with Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, as women responded to other liberation movements and created (resurrected)
their own movement and analysis. Learn about the First, Second,
and Third Waves of American feminism. Find out what “Intersectionality” means. Delve into the vast array of current—often controversial—feminist issues, many of which are front and center
on the American political scene, e.g., abortion and contraception,
transgendering, sex vs. gender, sexual assault and rape, body
image, race, lesbianism, women in popular culture, and feminist
presses, blogs, and websites. Feminism also examines “international” issues such as Islam’s “sharia” and “the veil,” and traditional cultural practices (female genital mutilation). We will look at
a few of these issues, and there will be time in each class meeting
for discussion. Judith Lorber’s Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories
and Politics is recommended as a good survey of the issues.
Jo-Ann Pilardi, Ph.D., is professor emerita, Towson University,
where she taught philosophy and women’s studies for 38 years
and chaired Women’s Studies for nine. She was an activist in the
Baltimore women’s movement for many years and a member of
Towson’s Women’s Studies Committee from its inception in 1971.
With an M.A. in Philosophy (Pennsylvania State University) and a
Ph.D. in Humanities (Johns Hopkins University), her expertise is in
Continental and social-political philosophy and feminist theory.
Her publications include a book on Simone de Beauvoir and articles on various topics including Beauvoir, feminist theory, immigration, and hospitality. She has taught four philosophy courses
for Towson University’s Osher.
12
Songs of Social Engagement:
From ‘Battle Hymn’ to ‘Imagine’
Session I
Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. (begins March 9)
Fee: $65
S
ongs of social engagement,
also
called protest songs,
urge us to embrace a
more humane outlook,
to come together in
heightened unity, and
to task those in power
to justly wield that
power. Accordingly, protest songs are songs that further the
cause of, in the words of Martin Luther King, “love in calculation.” This four-week course will present several protest songs
from the Great Depression (and earlier) to the early 1970s,
and several other, more general “songs of social engagement.” We will hear and discuss such songs as “Battle Hymn
of the Republic”; the Great Depression song “Brother, Can You
Spare A Dime?”; the Spanish Civil War song “Viva la Quince
Brigada”; the pro-union songs “We Shall Not Be Moved” and
“Which Side Are You On?”; the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall
Overcome”; the French-language anti-war song “Jaurès” by
Jacques Brel; and John Lennon’s paean to peace, “Imagine.”
Students will be encouraged to read and enjoy the book, 33
Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie
Holiday to Green Day, by Dorian Lynskey.
Eric Stewart, an Osher member, is a retired computer analyst at
the Social Security Administration. As a young man, while a student
at Georgetown University, he experienced the anti-Vietnam War and
pro-Civil Rights movements. Before that, he fondly recalls the late1950s/early-1960s folk music revival. With this course, he wishes to
revisit with Osher students the idealism that informed the protest
songs of these earlier times.
ALL REGISTRATIONS WILL BE
PROCESSED AFTER PREVIEW.
Full classes will go to lottery two
weeks after preview.