England's crisis of the 17th century is difficult to navigate.  It was a series of civil wars; it was a religious war; it was a war involving foreign powers; it was a revolution that beheaded a king and established a republic. At the end came the "glorious revolution of 1688" which forever limited the power of the monarch and firmly established "English constitutionalism."   

It can be very confusing to keep all the actors, actions and outcomes straight, made even more confusing by the fact that for the next 250 years, the English tended to overlook the events between 1640 and 1688, focusing on "the Glorious Revolution of 1688." 

In this SDG, our goal is to make sense of all of this. We will treat the half century from 1638 to 1688 as a revolution, no less important than the American and French revolutions that followed in the next century. This is the period when the modern British state emerged. To understand modern Britain, one must explore the 50-year English civil wars and revolutions. Join us as we take this journey.   

A excursion through the dark side of Asia through seven award winning crime novels.

Death of a Red Heroine by  Qiu Xiaolong (Chen Cao #1) set in Shanghai China. The shady past of a popular party member comes to light after she is found dead. Winner of the Anthony prize 464pgs

Out by Natsuo Kirino set in Japan. A woman working graveyard in a Bento factory murders her abusive husband and enlists the help of her coworkers to cover it up. Winner of Best Novel by the Japan Mystery Writers and nominated for Best Novel by the 2004 Edgar Awards. 388pgs

Smaller and Smaller Circles by F. H. Batacan set in the Philippines. A pair of Jesuit priests try to solve a string of murders of young boys. Winner of the Carlos Palanca Grand Prize in 1999, the National Book Award in 2002 and others. 368pgs

The Investigation by J. M. Lee set in South Korea. A young guard is assigned to investigate the murder of a brutal fellow guard in a Japanese prison camp just after the second world war, and finds the guard was not who he appeared to be. Nominated for Foreign Fiction Prize. 336pgs

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino set in Japan. A detective trying to solve the murder of an abusive husband is thwarted by a mathematics teacher helping the abused wife. Winner of the 2006 Naoki prize, nominee for Best Novel, 2006 Edgar Awards and many others. (Detective Galileo #3) 352pgs

Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison (Inspector Shan #1) set in Tibet. Inspector Shan is released temporarily from a prison camp to try to solve the murder of a headless corpse and quickly realizes powerful forces are involved. Winner of British Golden Dagger award, and Edgar Award for Best First Novel 428pgs

A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church set in North Korea. Inspector O given a simple assignment to photograph a car soon realizes things in North Korea can get very complicated very quickly. One of Publisher Weekly's Top 100 of 2006. 288pgs

You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity.

Published in 2022, the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in fierce competition is “pulse quickening…a nonfiction thriller” (The New York Times). Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study" (London Times).

This book discusses the history of the British empire in India. It grew out of a speech on reparations to India that author presented at Oxford University. The author has been a member of Parliament for the Congress Party. Many writers praise the rule of the British in the sub-continent. This book, on the contrary,  looks at every aspect of the question and shows how British rule was a disaster for the people there. It destroyed the indigenous textile industry, did not develop the country, and lead to gigantic famines. India is the most populous country in the world and is called the world's biggest democracy. This book enables us to understand how the country got to this place.

Is it true that many great playwrights are Irish? If so, what makes Ireland a fertile ground for producing them?

There are many reasons why Ireland has produced so many prominent contemporary playwrights. Some of the factors that have contributed to Ireland’s rich theatrical tradition include:

a) Ireland’s strong oral storytelling tradition: Ireland has a long history of oral storytelling, which has influenced its literary and theatrical traditions.

b) The influence of Irish nationalism: The Irish nationalist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to a revival of Irish language, culture, and literature.

c) The establishment of the Abbey Theatre: The Abbey Theatre, which was founded in 1904, played a key role in fostering and promoting Irish drama.

d) And Government support for the arts.

In this 12 week SDG, we will read twelve plays by ten Irish playwrights going back to 1904. These plays represent a wide range of styles, themes, and historical periods, and each one offers rich opportunities for discussion and analysis.

SDG sessions will be half on the life of Bach (from the book) and half listening to and discussing selected Bach compositions that we will curate including The Brandenburg Concerto, secular cantatas (e.g., The Hunt Cantata), The Well-Tempered Clavier (selection of the 48 pieces), The Goldberg Variations (selection of the 30 pieces), a selection of Bach's sacred cantatas (he wrote hundreds), violin concertos, orchestral suites, the glorious St. Mathew Passion, his Mass in B Minor, The Art of The Fugue, etc. Our author, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, is both a historian and esteemed conductor, so the book offers valuable German and musical history related to Bach and his music, providing a real sense of how Bach fit into his musical era.

Percival Everett's JAMES is a brilliant re-telling of the great American classic, Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, from the point of view of the runaway slave, Jim. In this SDG, we will first read Twain's humorous account of what happens to Huck and Jim as they float down the Mississippi River, encountering white slavers, grifters, feuding families, and sympathetic hosts. We will then re-trace their steps, focusing on the experiences of James as he rewrites his own history, and in the process reshapes our understandings of the American South just before the Civil War and of the institution of slavery.

Part of philosophy’s concerns has always been with mortal life: how to understand it and how to live it. Nagel’s essays in Mortal Questions are about life: about its end, its meaning, its value, and about the metaphysics of consciousness. Questions about our attitudes towards death, sexual behavior, social inequality, war and political power are shown to lead to more traditional philosophical problems about personal identity, consciousness, freedom and value. Nagel's approach to these issues is to place more emphasis on problems over solutions, intuition over arguments, and pluralistic discord over systematic harmony. According to him, simplicity and elegance are never reasons to think that a philosophical theory is true. On the contrary, they are usually grounds for thinking it false.

Nagel’s focus is always on the arguments for and against the issues and not on dead philosophers. This original book aims at a form of understanding that is both theoretical and personal in its lively engagement with what are literally issues of life and death.

The book has 14 chapters and this SDG will cover two chapters per session for a total of 7 sessions.

Introduction

Join us to watch (at home) and then discuss (in person) selections from the varied and rich 2006–2024 Best International Feature Films (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020).  The winners of these Oscars are among the best films of each year.  Watching foreign films allows us to learn more about other countries' customs and cultures, and promotes global understanding.  It also allows us to see the human sides of each other in a world torn apart by war and social problems.

The rising profile of international films at the Oscars is the start of an overdue correction to Hollywood’s at times self-centered attitudes.  It is also one of the most important—but least discussed—consequences of the ceremony’s parent organization, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), trying to become more diverse and global. 

The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by AMPAS. It is given to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States, usually with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.

Unlike other Academy Awards, the International Feature Film award is not presented to a specific individual (although it is accepted on-stage by its director), but is considered an award for the submitting country as a whole. Over the years, the Best International Feature Film Award and its predecessors have been given predominantly to European films: out of the seventy-two awards handed out by the academy since 1947 to foreign language films, fifty-seven have gone to European films, seven to Asian films, five to films from the Americas and three to African films. Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini directed four Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award–winning motion pictures during his lifetime, a record that remains unmatched as of 2015 (if Special Awards are taken into account, then Fellini's record is tied by his countryman Vittorio De Sica).

The most awarded foreign country is Italy, with 14 awards won (including three Special Awards) and 29 nominations, while France is the foreign country with the most nominations (37 for 12 wins, including three Special Awards). Israel is the foreign country with the most nominations (10) without winning an award, while Portugal has the most submissions (34) without a nomination. In 2020 (92nd), South Korea's entrant Parasite became the first International Feature Film winner, as well as the first non-English language film overall, to win Best Picture.

Writer Vera Blasi, a part of the 2016 class of new Academy members, has credits including Woman on Top (2000), Tortilla Soup (2001), and Emperor (2012).  She grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, which gave her a perspective on foreign language films.  "One of the great rewards of watching foreign films is the infinite ways it can open up the world for you as a viewer. ...  In an increasingly homogenized world, foreign films tend to focus more on human drama,” she observes.  “Instead of being the usual types of movies, they tend to be more raw and unrefined, the same way true emotions are. I think it comes from the fact that these films often don’t have the budget for expensive pyrotechnics, so the only things turning into an orange ball of fire are human emotions!”

Scope
We will view at home, and then discuss during the SDG sessions, fourteen Best International Feature Films.  Given the usual S/DG time constraints, this S/DG will take a broad—rather than a deep—look at films which the Academy members selected.  The desired outcome is to understand better these major foreign films, and their influences—within both film appreciation and film studies contexts.

Some Recommended Areas and Topics for Discussions (As taken from past film SDGs)
Remember that our International films are much more than just the plot and story line, the back stories on the production, or the cast members.  And that international films' time and place, context, values and background are grounded in foreign cultures, not our American culture.

1.    The Basics:
    —    Year of Release, and Submitting country and Language(s)
    —    Producer, Director, Screenwriter(s), Cinematographer, Music/Composer, Editor
    —    The Cast
    —    Awards

2.    Place within the overall “world of film.”  (viz., Does this film “stand up” over time? Was it a product of its time and fashion, or a unique work of art?)

3.    Setting of the film and Plot summary (Brief descriptions)

4.    This film’s unique characteristics, techniques or breakthroughs

5.    Director's own commentary on the film—Summary

6.    Various critics’ reviews and commentaries—Summaries

7.    Discussion about the film’s:
    —    Key themes, Symbology and Imagery
    —    Influences:  Cultural, Societal, Stylistic, Political, Philosophical, Religious or Market audiences
    —    Interpretative frameworks (e.g., Auteur theory, Realism, Feminist film theory, etc.)
    —    Messages, or political or social commentary
    —    Screenplay/Screenwriting (Quality, uniqueness, …)
    —    Establishment of Time and Place, including foreign societal and cultural influences
    —    Main and Supporting Characters (and were the roles well- or mis-cast?)
    —    Mise-en-scène (composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting)
    —    Cinematography
    —    Montage (Assembly, Editing, Juxtapositioning or Special sequencing of shots)
    —    Music/score
    —    Special Effects
    —    Ending, “loose ends”, ambiguities, disconnects, surprises, etc.

8.    Selected Important/Interesting scenes to view in class (Limited to < 15 minutes total so we’re not just re-watching the movie).

     Poetry puts off many people. They associate it with required classes in school. It’s like your mother telling you to eat your broccoli. Well, in truth, a lot of poetry is a slog. But there is much poetry that is clever, engaging, witty and brief. The purpose of this SDG is to pursue that kind of poetry, both early and modern. No slogging here. The poems are selected for meaning, but are not dreary in language or content. I have found that this kind of poetry stays with the reader because of its cleverness, deft and unexpected uses of language and brevity.

      I coordinated an SDG with the same title and much of the same poetry seven years ago. I was asked if I wish to repeat it.  I do. In my mind, the poems merit repeated reading and discussion.  Most of the poems are short enough to allow several poets and a number of poems to be included in a single session.   I also added a session on limericks with the idea that each SDG member will bring a limerick or two which are clever and have a moral.   Our discussions in the previous SDG were excellent and I would expect the same here.

     Each SDG session will consist of brief briographical information about the poet(s) of the day, readings aloud of some of the poems of the day and discussion. 

Magisteria (the word first coined by Stephen Jay Gould) is a book that tries to solve a dilemma that has plagued thinking people since the Renaissance: the rift between science and religion.

The thesis of the book written by Nicholas Spencer, a Research Fellow at Theo, part of the Goldsmith University in London, is that the rift is a myth, and that in fact this myth started in the 19th and 20th Century.

Prior to the scientific revolution, the role of religion was usually strangling and sometimes inspiring. However, since that time the relationship between the two Magisteria, has certainly not been uniformly harmonious¹, but had its up and downs.

Currently, throughout the world, disbelief or rejection of science is on the rise, most recently the antivaxxers that rejected the COVID vaccines based on religious beliefs or refused the use of masks or congregating in large numbers because of the belief that science lies^2,3. How do the stories of the Bible as portrayed by the Creationist theme parks in Kentucky stand up against the sciences of geology and anthropology⁴ ?

This SDG will cover the views of how various religions interface with science, either supportive or antagonistic, or in many cases, both. Similarly, we will discuss how many well known people of science can be both religious and great scientists. Think of Newton (Christian, Gravity), Isaac Rabi (Orthodox Jew, Atom Bomb), Francis Collings (Catholic, Director NIH) and many more.

1. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, Stephen Jay Gould

2. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-mask-vaccination-mandates-aren-t-christian-persecution-ncna1278067

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/us/covid-vaccine-evangelicals.html

4. https://arkencounter.com/

We now live twice as long as we did 150 years ago.  Many live well past retirement age. There is extensive ongoing research into the biological process of aging.  The ultimate goal is the prolongation of life and mitigation or delay of the debilitating  accompaniments of advanced age.  In his new book "Why We Die" Noble prize winning chemist Venki Ramakrishnan takes us on a fascinating tour of this research from the ancient Egyptians to the most up to date.  Aging begins early in life with accumulating genetic damage although the cell has ingenious repair mechanisms.  Scientists are exploiting this knowledge to devise novel treatments and techniques.  Some of these treatments are very promising and others seem like snake oil.  The author explores the outer limits of life expectantcy and what science could accomplish.  He ends with several questions for discussion.  What would happen if death were eliminated?  What are the ethical issues in extending our life spans?  Should we only be concerned with mitigating or delaying the disability which accompanies advanced age?

 Although there are descriptions of cellular anatomy, biochemical processes and genetics the book is aimed for the non-scientist.  It is an entertaining and informative read. Please join us for 7 weeks of discussions about the latest research on how to live healthier and longer.

A Tale of Love and Darkness 

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and The seminal classic by Amos Oz

Amos Oz was a rare talent; he wrote about reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, men and women, religious and secular beliefs all through the lens of intense compromise and intention.  Protagonists resembling his mother are peppered throughout his writings as well;  she is the centre of his story. This book, which has been translated into many languages, originally wasn’t intended for publishing – it was written for family and friends.

 A Tale of Love and Darkness is a deeply personal and poignant memoir that explores the complex interplay of love, despair, and identity against the backdrop of a developing Israeli state.  This autobiographical work lays out the narrative of Amos Oz's Jerusalem childhood in the 1940's, intricately blending the history of Israel with the story of Oz's own family, detailing their struggles, aspirations, and tragedies.  

The book captures the emotional and social currents of Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood and during the early years of the nation. We learn about Oz's childhood in the war-torn city, his relationship with his parents, and the tragic suicide of his mother when he was just twelve years old. These personal elements are interwoven with broader themes of cultural and political significance, including the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish immigrants, the tensions between socialist ideals and reality, and the conflicts between Jews and Arabs in the region.

Oz's narrative is rich in detail and filled with introspection, making use of both humor, fear and sorrow to tell a story that is as much about a nation as it is about an individual. The memoir is not only a historical document but also a literary exploration of memory and identity, providing insights into the intricacies of life in Israel through the lens of one of its most significant literary figures.   A deeply personal memoir of the author's childhood and adolescence moving from Lithuania to Jerusalem.  His personal reflections intimately weave all the events that transformed him and his family; as they tell the history of the founding of Israel and the costs endemic in this historical birth.   Looking with Amos Oz's eyes at the early history and founding of Israel we can see the heady promise of a Jewish homeland.  As someone whose family came from Romania to Israel and onward to the United States, I see the history of my family and many other Jewish families in this powerful story

Israel, Palestine, and Peace - Essays

Our second book is titled, "Israel, Palestine and Peace". These essays illuminate the principles underlying the Two-State Solution, the Zionist Dream, and the reality of how to achieve "one land - two peoples".   These essays by Amos Oz demonstrate the possibility of cooperative communication to explore a more balanced, life-affirming and judicious approach to the crisis between the Arabs and Jews.  My hope is that we can learn from Amos Oz's efforts and gain understanding of what might bring peace to human endeavors.

We now live twice as long as we did 150 years ago.  Many live well past retirement age. There is extensive ongoing research into the biological process of aging.  The ultimate goal is the prolongation of life and mitigation or delay of the debilitating  accompaniments of advanced age.  In his new book "Why We Die" Noble prize winning chemist Venki Ramakrishnan takes us on a fascinating tour of this research from the ancient Egyptians to the most up to date.  Aging begins early in life with accumulating genetic damage although the cell has ingenious repair mechanisms.  Scientists are exploiting this knowledge to devise novel treatments and techniques.  Some of these treatments are very promising and others seem like snake oil.  The author explores the outer limits of life expectantcy and what science could accomplish.  He ends with several questions for discussion.  What would happen if death were eliminated?  What are the ethical issues in extending our life spans?  Should we only be concerned with mitigating or delaying the disability which accompanies advanced age?

 Although there are descriptions of cellular anatomy, biochemical processes and genetics the book is aimed for the non-scientist.  It is an entertaining and informative read. Please join us for 7 weeks of discussions about the latest research on how to live healthier and longer

A Tale of Love and Darkness, Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and The seminal classic by Amos Oz

Amos Oz was a rare talent; he wrote about reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, men and women, religious and secular beliefs all through the lens of intense compromise and intention. Protagonists resembling his mother are peppered throughout his writings as well; she is the centre of his story. This book, which has been translated into many languages, originally wasn’t intended for publishing – it was written for family and friends.

 A Tale of Love and Darkness is a deeply personal and poignant memoir that explores the complex interplay of love, despair, and identity against the backdrop of a developing Israeli state. This autobiographical work lays out the narrative of Amos Oz's Jerusalem childhood in the 1940's, intricately blending the history of Israel with the story of Oz's own family, detailing their struggles, aspirations, and tragedies.  

The book captures the emotional and social currents of Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood and during the early years of the nation. We learn about Oz's childhood in the war-torn city, his relationship with his parents, and the tragic suicide of his mother when he was just twelve years old. These personal elements are interwoven with broader themes of cultural and political significance, including the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish immigrants, the tensions between socialist ideals and reality, and the conflicts between Jews and Arabs in the region.

Oz's narrative is rich in detail and filled with introspection, making use of both humor, fear and sorrow to tell a story that is as much about a nation as it is about an individual. The memoir is not only a historical document but also a literary exploration of memory and identity, providing insights into the intricacies of life in Israel through the lens of one of its most significant literary figures. A deeply personal memoir of the author's childhood and adolescence moving from Lithuania to Jerusalem. His personal reflections intimately weave all the events that transformed him and his family; as they tell the history of the founding of Israel and the costs endemic in this historical birth. Looking with Amos Oz's eyes at the early history and founding of Israel we can see the heady promise of a Jewish homeland. As someone whose family came from Romania to Israel and onward to the United States, I see the history of my family and many other Jewish families in this powerful story

Israel, Palestine, and Peace - Essays

Our second book is titled, Israel, Palestine and Peace. These essays illuminate the principles underlying the Two-State Solution, the Zionist Dream, and the reality of how to achieve "one land - two peoples". These essays by Amos Oz demonstrate the possibility of cooperative communication to explore a more balanced, life-affirming and judicious approach to the crisis between the Arabs and Jews. My hope is that we can learn from Amos Oz's efforts and gain understanding of what might bring peace to human endeavors.

It is better to win than to lose. Our paleolithic ancestors already knew that having a rock in your hand gave you a military advantage. But not all strategies must involve bloodshed. The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age will introduce numerous ways of winning without rocks or rockets, but such areas as; economics, sociology agronomy, engineering, and psychology. The forty-five contributors to the book will take us from Pericles and his asymmetric strategy in the Peloponnesian Wars to electronic spying of today. What are the potential strategic advantages for competing sides in the use of space? With the growing ability of each side to precisely calculate each other’s strength and with AI, will wars be no longer necessary? We invite those seriously interested in history and politics to our SDG.

The core book is over 1000 pages long,   but  the required reading  will be shortened  to a manageable  number of pages. 

"The word essay we have from the French, in which tongue it signifies a trial or probation" (Thomas Culpeper, 1671).

We will sample superb essays by some of America’s best writers since the beginning of this Century, including Philip Lopate, Alexander Chee, John McPhee, Joyce Carol Oates, and David Sedaris, among many others. The essays are short, but compelling.  There will be much to discuss.  Welcome aboard!

Shankar Vendantam is an American journalist and author who focuses on human behavior and the social sciences.  "The Hidden Brain & Useful Delusions" SDG will be based on two of Vendantam's books:  "The Hidden Brain:  How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives" and "Useful Delusions:  The Power & Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain" (co-written by Bill Mesler).  Readings will also be supplemented with short video clips, podcasts and Ted Talks that feature Shankar Vendantam.

Over a ten week period, we will read and discuss topics such as the life cycle of bias, race, gender, privilege, extremism and how our unconscious minds impact our beliefs, our politics, and the ways we interact with family, friends and society in general.  We will start with "The Hidden Brain" published in 2010 and segue into "Useful Delusions" published in 2021.  Understanding how our unconscious minds work will be particularly useful as we navigate the twists and turns that are sure to follow the 2024 election.

Shankar Vendantam is the recipient of the Edward R Murrow Award and has also received honors from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Society of Political Psychology, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Austen Riggs Center, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Webby Awards, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors, the South Asian Journalists Association, the Asian American Journalists Association, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the American Public Health Association, the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship on Science and Religion, and the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship.

Robert Moses was never elected to any office and yet, for almost half a century, was the single most powerful man in New York’s history.

    “The very shoreline of New York was different before Robert Moses came to power. He rammed steel into the muck beneath the rivers and crammed earth and cement into the space that hardened into fifteen thousand acres of new land altering the physical boundaries of the city. 
    Robert Moses was never a member of the Housing Authority and his relationship with it was only hinted at in the press. But between 1945 and 1958 no site for public housing was selected and no brick of a public housing project was laid without his approval. For seven years between 1946 and 1953 no public improvement of any type – not school or sewer, library or pier, hospital or catch basin – was built by any city agency, even those he didn’t control,  unless Robert Moses approved its design and location.”

    The subject of the book is Robert Moses, the New York city planner but the hero of the book is the author Robert Caro. Caro was interested in how political power worked but uncovering this was more difficult than he imagined. His subjects sometimes didn’t welcome his attention. Other times he had to dig up long buried facts or discern unseen motives during interviews. Over 40 years numerous biographers had tried to do a biography of Robert Moses. Caro was told “No one who ever wants a contract from the state or city will ever talk to you.”  And with that wisdom Caro started interviewing anyway.  He had a total of 7 interviews with Robert Moses himself. Caro expected to write the book in 9 months. It took him 7 years to finish. The book went through 3 publishers and two editors and nearly bankrupted Caro. Today this book is considered a masterpiece of investigative biography. Even in 2023 50 years after publication, it sold more than 17,000 copies.

One of the impressive aspects of the book is its size - 1163 pages!  So this SDG will read and discuss a small portion, 323 pages, that cover the years 1938 to 1955 when Moses had his greatest influence. For week 6, we will watch a two hour Ric Burns documentary on Moses and La Guardia.

If you have ever read the great novels of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy or Turgenev for example, or enjoyed the poetry of Pushkin, plays by Chekhov or the satire of Gogol and would like to enrich your knowledge of these and other Russian authors who also lent their gifts to the writing of short stories, this is the SDG for you.  We will use the Penguin Classic Edition of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida as our primary text along with online stories from Project Gutenberg.org. The curriculum includes stories concerning issues as varied as fate and free will, God, love, social hierarchies, satire, the depth of human suffering and more.

The seed of a United States world order was first planted in the middle of the Western Hemisphere.  Long before the advent  of nuclear weapons and spaceflight, the topical lands of Latin America beckoned to ambitious Yankee adventurers, entrepreneurs and politicians, who set out on military and commercial expeditions in search of glory and profit.  A US world order began to take root in the verdant valleys of Central America and its "banana republics". In the nineteenth century, Central America was a metaphor for the possibilities of American empire.  Unable to deal with the products of its own system, the Unite States from Eisenhower on resorted to force.  The result has been more revolution.  In the twentieth, as war, revolution and counterrevolution spread through El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, Central America became a metaphor for the American empire's ugliness.  In the twenty-first, since the Bush Doctrine, which equated terrorist-financing states with terrorists and approved of preventative war, pre-emptive war, and democracy promotion, no president has announced their own foreign policy doctrine. All three of his successors—Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden—explicitly ran against the Bush Doctrine, but all were ultimately unable to expunge it as none had a clear idea of how to replace it. .  In this SDG we will delve into the history of Central America's relationship with the United States; the shortsighted decisions made again and again by US leaders that bring suffering and mayhem to the people in Central America; and the subsequent unleashing of a chaotic torrent of Central Americans immigrating to the US.  This SDG is NOT about what to do about immigration, but rather to study the causes of Central American immigration to the US because of American foreign policy decisions.

In a career spanning more than fifty years, Wallace Stegner (1909–93) emerged as the greatest contemporary author of the American West—writing more than two dozen works of history, biography, essays, and fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angle of Repose.  

Stegner was "critical of the individualistic ethos of the West in all its manifestations: romantic, entrepreneurial and countercultural".  He was passionate about the need to protect our wild places, and our landscape.  A.O.Scott wrote:  "Stegner’s books abide in an undervisited stretch of the American canon, like a national park you might drive past on the way to a theme park or ski resort. If you do visit, you find a topography that looks familiar at first glance — as if from an old postcard — but becomes stranger and more deeply shadowed the longer you stay."  

“J’accuse!” (I accuse!) is a famous open letter by Émile Zola to the French president on the scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair. Published on the front page of L’Aurore (The Dawn) in 1898, it has been called the greatest newspaper article of all time. It accused military officers of covering up the evidence that forged documents had been used to wrongly convict Alfred Dreyfus of espionage. Dreyfus, an obscure army officer from a wealthy Jewish family, had been falsely accused of passing French military secrets to the Germans in 1894. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. Zola went on to say that “by appealing to odious antisemitism, [the accusation] will destroy a freedom-loving France". Zola was a leading light of France and his letter formed a major turning point in the Dreyfus Affair and the conviction was eventually reversed. Zola is buried in the Panthéon, along with other heroes of France.

Émile Zola was not just a fighter for truth and justice. He was also a prolific French writer who lived from 1840 to 1902. He was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize.Today he is remembered as one of the most important writers of his time. His work had a profound influence on French literature and on the development of naturalism as a literary movement which sought to accurately depict the world as it truly was, rather than idealizing it or romanticizing it.

Zola’s novels are characterized by a gritty realism that seeks to expose the harsh realities of life for the working class and the poor. He believed that people were largely shaped by their social and economic environment and that their choices are heavily limited by these factors. His novels also expose the corruption and inequalities of French society. Zola also believed that an understanding of human behavior required an understanding of psychology, and so his novels often explore the inner thoughts and emotions of his characters.

Zola is best known for his 20 volume series of novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, which is the history of three branches of a family during the reign of Napoleon III. These novels can be read out of order and three of them will be included in this SDG. These three works were chosen both for their popularity and for the interest of their subject matter.

Germinal, perhaps the best known of Zola’s novels, explores the lives of coal miners. The protagonist leads a strike against the oppressive working conditions in the mines. The novel examines the harsh realities of industrialization and the struggle for workers’ rights.

The Drinking Den (aka The Drunkard and by its French title, L’Assommoir) is a realistic portrayal of the lives of working-class people in Paris. It follows the story of a laundress who struggles with poverty and alcoholism. The novel examines the social and economic forces that contribute to her downfall.

The Masterpiece (aka His Masterpiece and by its French title L’Oeuvre) explores the milieu of the art world of the Impressionists. Zola was a childhood friend of the artist Paul Cézanne. Many of the characteristics ascribed to the protagonist are a composite taken from the lives of several Impressionist painters including Monet, Manet, and Cézanne.

Zola’s contributions to naturalism had a profound impact on literature and influenced writers such as John Steinbeck, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London. His political engagement and willingness to speak out against injustice continue to inspire readers and writers around the world.