This course will cover the different stages of the Mexican Independence War, from its beginnings in San Miguel de Allende in 1810 with the first leaders, Miguel Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende.  We will talk about their reasons, their fight and their deaths.  You will also learn about José María Morelos, who continued the movement in the southern part of Mexico, the “guerrillas,” and the final victory in 1821 by Vicente Guerrero and Agustín de Iturbide.

Jesús Ibarra was recently the editor of Atención San Miguel. He has taught history to high school students in the San Miguel school Naciones Unidas for two years, and has taught English at the University of León. He is the author of three books about Mexican cinema and theater.  His most recent book is Dulce Renunciación, a biography of José Guadalupe Mojica, actor, tenor, and priest who founded the San Miguel orphanage for boys, Mexiquito.  He is currently the director of the Instituto Allende.

This course is a general introduction to Mexican law. It will begin with the origins of Mexican law in the Napoleonic Code, a different system from the origin of American and Canadian law in English common law. It will include attention to the historical influence of Roman law on both the written and precedent law systems in Mexico, compare criminal law systems of Anglo and Latin origin, discuss a general theory of law in Mexico in terms of structure and division, and end with an analysis of the current Mexican law system from the federal to the local levels, including attention to the theory vs. the reality of law in Mexico.

Gabriel García McFarland is an attorney in private practice and a professor of law at the Universidad Patria, both in San Miguel. His law firm specializes in civil, mercantile, penal, labor, and administrative law. He earned his law degree and a Masters degree in state and local public administration from the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro. He has served as a court translator in civil and criminal court, English/Spanish.

Research shows that the vast majority of people consider themselves to be “good,” while rating a much higher percentage of the rest of humanity as “bad.”  Most of us perceive the world and ourselves through our own lens of place and time, different for each of us.  When, where and in what circumstances we live dictate our perception of goodness and what constitutes a “good person.”  Through an interdisciplinary look from history, philosophy, religion and sociology at the concept of goodness in three cultures — Western Europe/North America, China, and Latin America — we can better understand the basic fluidity of the notion of a good person.  So many factors can influence our concepts of good and evil and what makes a person one or the other – or perhaps neither.  Or both.

Tammy Belden completed her undergraduate work in English literature and her graduate work in cultural anthropology.  She has lived in Washington D.C. for the past forty-five years, working at the Library of Congress for almost thirty years.  Since retiring from the Library, she has pursued various consultancies and has served as a tour guide in Washington for eleven years.  Meeting and conversing with individuals from all walks of life and from throughout the country and abroad have helped to break the bubble of judging life and people through the narrow lens of a large United States city.  

Donald Trump’s 2016 victory could be repeated in 2020. This non-partisan and participatory class will look at many factors that may influence the outcome next year – the electoral college, swing counties and states, the candidates, information and media, Fox News, the internet, polls, immigration and “the wall,” race, economics, cultural conflict and resentments, education, social issues, guns, health, voter turnout, foreign interference, attitudes towards government, and the roles of women, elites, the white working class, and rural and suburban voters. The focus also will be on the potential impact of the Mueller report, Congressional actions, and claims of “fake news,” “witch hunts,” “cover up,” and “no collusion.”

Joe Belden is a rural-issues writer and activist based in Washington, DC, focusing for over forty years as a bipartisan and nonpartisan advocate for rural low-income people on issues of rural poverty, affordable housing, sustainable agriculture, and others.  From 1989 until 2015 he was Deputy Executive Director of the Housing Assistance Council, a national nonprofit that supports affordable rural housing.  He also has worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and for several nonprofit organizations and think tanks.  He is the author of Housing in Rural America: Building Affordable and Inclusive Communities (Sage 1998), Dirt Rich, Dirt Poor: America’s Food and Farm Crisis (Routledge 1986), and a number of other publications.  Joe is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the Baylor University Law School and is a member of the Texas and DC bars.

How did the novel Call Me by Your Name get turned into such a wonderful film? How did Oscar-winning writer James Ivory turn novelist André Aciman’s interior monologue of longing and love in which next to nothing happens into a film that has a lot happening, to capture the novel’s languorous tone? How did director Luca Guadagnino take the script and translate it into images containing action and point of view? How do all the components of cinematography — lighting, camera, sound, design, performance, editing, and more — create a unique film world ideal for this particular story? And how does this unique film world represent the film’s style?

Jim Purdy is a Canadian feature film writer and director based in Toronto. He was the creator and author of the popular national CBC-TV series Home Fires in Canada and has written and directed five feature films. He also taught 4^th year screenwriting at York University and is the author of The Hollywood Social Problem Film, published by Indiana University Press.  For this course he has interviewed James Ivory.

Roma, the 2018 Mexican film, topped nearly every critic’s best-film-of-the-year list and more than that, was designated by many as a genuine masterpiece. What makes this extraordinarily sensitive, beautiful film so effective? Why has it been named one of the great films of the new century? How did its Mexican director, Alfonso Cuarón, shift from such commercial projects as Gravity (2013 winner of 2 Oscars), Children of Men (2006), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) to such a deeply personal film? And how did Cuarón evolve such a unique and rich visual style for the film, given that he was its writer, director, cinematographer, AND co-editor? And how did he reflect the tensions of Mexican society, tensions between classes, genders, and races? Explore these and many other fascinating questions around this truly brilliant Mexican masterpiece.

Jim Purdy is a Canadian feature film writer and director based in Toronto. He was the creator and author of the popular national CBC-TV series Home Fires in Canada and has written and directed five feature films. He also taught 4^th year screenwriting at York University and is the author of The Hollywood Social Problem Film, published by Indiana University Press.

Roma, the 2018 Mexican film, topped nearly every critic’s best-film-of-the-year list and more than that, was designated by many as a genuine masterpiece. What makes this extraordinarily sensitive, beautiful film so effective? Why has it been named one of the great films of the new century? How did its Mexican director, Alfonso Cuarón, shift from such commercial projects as Gravity (2013 winner of 2 Oscars), Children of Men (2006), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) to such a deeply personal film? And how did Cuarón evolve such a unique and rich visual style for the film, given that he was its writer, director, cinematographer, AND co-editor? And how did he reflect the tensions of Mexican society, tensions between classes, genders, and races? Explore these and many other fascinating questions around this truly brilliant Mexican masterpiece.

Jim Purdy is a Canadian feature film writer and director based in Toronto. He was the creator and author of the popular national CBC-TV series Home Fires in Canada and has written and directed five feature films. He also taught 4^th year screenwriting at York University and is the author of The Hollywood Social Problem Film, published by Indiana University Press.

On February 8 and 9 Pro Musica will present L’Elisir d’Amore (The Elixir of Love), a comic opera by the early 19^th century composer Gaetano Donizetti.  This one-day course will give you an introduction to the opera currently ranked #13 of the world’s most performed operas.  We’ll consider its bel canto style, the characters, the plot and how previous productions have told the story.  We’ll listen to and see the major moments in the opera.  The wonderful roles in this opera made stars of singers like Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.  This opera is so full of happiness that you’ll be singing too!

Please note:  tickets to the opera must be purchased from Pro Musica.

Phillip Silver is a Canadian designer of scenery, costume, and lighting for opera, theatre, and dance, with close to 300 productions to his credit.  His work has been seen across Canada, in the U.S., and in the West End.  He taught at York University in Toronto, and served there as Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts.  His approach to design builds on a strong understanding of the storyline as the genesis for the action, the words, and of course in opera, the music.  In 2008, he was honored with induction to the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts.

On February 8 and 9 Pro Musica will present L’Elisir d’Amore (The Elixir of Love) a comic opera by the early 19^th century composer Gaetano Donizetti.  This one-day course will give you an introduction to the opera currently ranked #13 of the world’s most performed operas.  We’ll consider its bel canto style, the characters, the plot and how previous productions have told the story.  We’ll listen to and see the major moments in the opera.  The wonderful roles in this opera made stars of singers like Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.  This opera is so full of happiness that you’ll be singing too!

Please note:  tickets to the opera must be purchased from Pro Musica.

Phillip Silver is a Canadian designer of scenery, costume, and lighting for opera, theatre, and dance, with close to 300 productions to his credit.  His work has been seen across Canada, in the U.S., and in the West End.  He taught at York University in Toronto, and served there as Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts.  His approach to design builds on a strong understanding of the storyline as the genesis for the action, the words, and of course in opera, the music.  In 2008, he was honored with induction to the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts.

The three trials addressed in this series take us from the 19th century to the 21st, from Oscar Wilde in England, to Roe v. Wade in the U.S., and finally to Canada for Carter v. Canada.  Dealing with issues of sexuality, race, abortion and death, these were trials that forced societies to look at themselves through a legal lens and to ask the question: “Could we do better?”  During the course you will learn about why these trials happened, who the major players were, why the outcome was what it was, and how the world changed because of the court’s ruling.  We will talk about why advances were made and about some of the continuing challenges these issues present.  Classes will include lectures, videos, and discussion.  

Sylvia Solomon is a retired educator with over thirty years of teaching experience in elementary schools, secondary schools, and several universities including the University of Western Ontario, University of Toronto, York University, and Queen’s University.  She has also lectured at the Instituto Allende in Mexico and the 92^ndStreet Y in New York City. The last fourteen years of her career she worked at the Ontario Ministry of Education, developing curriculum policy and resources that changed teaching and learning in Ontario. Her focus has always been social justice in education.

With the addition of Brett Kavanaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has a decidedly conservative majority. The extent to which that majority moves the Court’s jurisprudence to the right remains to be seen. We will examine the Court’s rulings in its 2018-2019 term involving gerrymandering, class action suits, gun control laws, 4^th Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, tribal treaty rights, 1^st Amendment church v. state issues, and the scope of 8^th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment as well as excessive fines. Only after we do this will we be able to determine whether the past term has been a slow step or a lurch. Welcome to the ride. It won’t be smooth.

Larry Rand has a Bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard, and a Master’s in History from Trinity College.  He taught history and constitutional law at Kent School in Connecticut for 40 years, eighteen of which were spent as chair of the history department.  He is Program Director at the Taconic Learning Center in Salisbury, CT, an adult education program much like the LLP, where he has taught Constitutional Law and Documentary Films.

Ecosystem services such as oxygen production, carbon dioxide removal, water purification, climate regulation, cycling of carbon, nitrate and phosphorus nutrients are naturally performed by various species.  These services, which are essential for life on earth and provide cultural benefits that foster spiritual and recreational well-being, are naturally executed daily on a massive scale.  This course will explore the impacts to these systems from increasing population growth and climate change.  Is there a path to save our ecosystems in order to prevent another Easter Island or Mayan die-out?

Sivajini Gilchrist is an adjunct professor at Kean University, New Jersey, where she teaches Environmental and Earth Science. She received her Ph.D in environmental science from Rutgers University. Her published dissertation focused on acid mine drainage from past mining activities in the Northeastern US.  She worked for three years at the US Environmental Protection Agency, as a high school Earth Science teacher, and a science coordinator/educator at the Newark Museum.

We will spend a day getting familiar with the extraordinary music of what is probably Beethoven’s most ambitious work, the Missa Solemnis.  By using both printed music and Beethoven’s own manuscript, we will see that even though the printed music exceeds every parameter of complexity and strength of expression, viewing Beethoven’s own notation shows us how in his own handwriting he went into even greater detail to guide the exact expression he envisioned.  In the Missa Solemnis, because of the text of the mass, one gains particularly vivid insight into Beethoven’s overwhelming powers of expression and the detailed ways he could envision particular sounds from each member of the orchestra and chorus.  In the morning class, we will discuss the piece in overview, tracing the historical details of its creation and pointing out, by listening with the score, the most notable features of its five movements.  In the afternoon class, we will spend some time absorbing the musical treatment of the text of the Credo, and then we will listen to the entire work alternating between watching the printed score and the manuscript.  NOTE:  you do not need to read music to enjoy this course.

Nicholas Kitchen is a solo violinist and chamber musician.  He is Artistic Director of the Heifetz International Music Institute, as well as a Professor of Violin at the New England Conservatory. He has performed world-wide for the last 30 years as first violinist and founder of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet, which is the faculty Quartet-in-Residence at New England Conservatory.  The New York Times has called Nicholas Kitchen “thrilling, vibrant, and captivating,” and named him one of the most active and innovative performers in the music world today.  Nick studied conducting at the Curtis Institute, and has conducted choruses and orchestras in masses and cantatas

With the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the disability rights movement, the gay rights movement, the me-too movement, and others, why do stereotyping and discrimination persist even though most of us are sincerely convinced we are unbiased?  This research-based and participatory course, focusing on many equity-related issues, will delve below the surface of our conscious thoughts and attitudes to cast light on what we don’t realize we think and believe — and act on.   By making the unconscious conscious, we control our attitudes and behaviors.  Otherwise, they control us.

Jo Sanders had a career as an educational researcher in gender equity, working with thousands of teachers and education professors nationwide to be more effective for both sexes in the classroom.  She has published ten books and dozens of book chapters and research papers, and has given speeches and workshops across the US and internationally.  She is the founder and director of the Lifelong Learning Program.

How did this small island nation with just 8 million people (in 1840) wrest independence from England, build a reputation for revolutionary violence, breed so many great artists in such a short period, and forge a world-wide renown for blarney (aka, storytelling)? The course will focus on the intersection of Irish politics/politicians (O’Connell, Parnell, DeValera) and Irish art/writers (Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, Synge, O’Casey, Beckett).

Terry Fitzpatrick was born in Montana and has a BA from University of Washington and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. As a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, he taught literature and helped create an interdisciplinary program in literature, history and philosophy.

This course will use the documentary film,  Eyes on the Prize, as the basis for an examination of economic, social, and other forms of marginalization of Black Americans from 1954 through 1965. During the years from the Montgomery bus boycott to Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, great strides were made in an effort to secure basic rights and social justice for Black Americans. Through the use of archival film and interviews with people involved in the civil rights struggle, Eyes on the Prize is a compelling overview of the degree to which the United States has, and has not, fulfilled the promise written in its founding documents.

Larry Rand has a Bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard, and a Master’s in History from Trinity College.  He taught history and constitutional law at Kent School in Connecticut for 40 years, eighteen of which were spent as chair of the history department.  He is Program Director at the Taconic Learning Center in Salisbury, CT, an adult education program much like the LLP, where he has taught Constitutional Law and Documentary Films.