Courses - 2024 Spring - SENIOR UNIVERSITY OF GREATER ATLANTA

Please take note whether instruction will be conducted via Zoom or In-Person.

ZOOM CLASSES - LINKS will be sent 5:00 pm ET evening before class. Please check your spam folder if not received.

IN-PERSON - Physical Address:
Rehoboth Baptist Church, 2997 Lawrenceville Hwy., Tucker, GA 30087

Each Class Meets Once Per Week for one hour unless otherwise indicated.

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ZOOM Options

Tuesdays - ZOOM

9:30 AM - ZOOM

SHORT PLAY PRESENTATIONS
Daniel Guyton, Playwright, Screenwriter, actor and professor

For this event, we will host Zoom readings of stage plays written by local playwrights and members of Atlanta Dramatists (formerly Merely Writers). After each performance, we will have a talkback with the cast and writer. Each week will include a separate play, or collection of plays as time permits. This class was first offered in Spring 2023 and was a resounding success! Join us again in 2024!

11:00 AM - ZOOM

TRAVEL ADVENTURES & ADVENTUROUS TRAVEL
Jane Kelly, Epidemiologist, CDC (retired)
Richard K. Judy, author of Thru: An Appalachian Trail Love Story
George Brown, CEO Friendship Force (retired), travel coordinator & SUGA member
Jeff Milsteen, Attorney and frequent SUGA presenter

Jane Kelly, our presenter for the last five sessions of this class will be doing adventurous travel herself in Chile until the first of April, so will be hearing from three guest presenters during the first 3 weeks.

March 12 - Richard K. Judy, who gives frequent talks on adventure travel, will discuss hiking the Appalachian Trail and other adventure hikes.
March 19 -George Brown will do a presentation on "Crossing the Pond: Transatlantic Travel from the Santa Maria to the Queen Mary 2."
March 26 - Jeff Milsteen will take us for a trip to Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located deep within the Arctic Circle

After our Spring Break, Jane Kelly will be with us. Some of the topics she will address include kayaking South Greenland; high altitude travels in places like Tibet and Bolivia, including health challenges in such environments; diving adventures, including injuries and decompression illness; travel and kayaking in extreme cold environments; jungle travels (Amazon, Asia and Africa); and safe volcano visiting!!

Thursdays - ZOOM

9:30 AM - ZOOM

MORAL MATTERS: Analyzing Modern Society’s Most Pressing Ethical Challenges
Coordinator: Paul Root Wolpe, Raymond F. Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair in Jewish Bioethics and Director, Center for Ethics, Emory University

In this course, the Faculty of the Center for Ethics at Emory University will present their work examining some of the most pressing ethical challenges of our time. Potential topics may include ethical and social complexities in health and medicine (end of life, rationing, access, obesity, transplants); science and biotechnology (artificial intelligence, neuroethics, cloning, genetic engineering); the natural world (animal morality, environmental ethics, sustainability); social relationships (philanthropy, poverty, conflict); and social institutions (business, law, social welfare, education). Issues will be examined through many ethical lenses, including philosophy, social science, religion, literature, and the arts.

11:00 AM - ZOOM

THE BALKANS
Sal Depasquale, MCJ (Criminal Justice), MBA

The Balkans: A place for empire building, diversity and genocide -- a place on the planet where forces of wealth, power and greed battled and slaughtered for thousands of years. Set within the Cradle of Empires, the Balkans make salient the butchery delineating the modern civilized world from the rest of the human experience. Nationalism, ethnicity, and religious affiliations serve as platforms for fear and hate leading to savagery in service of wealth, power and greed.
Suggested reading:
*Armstrong, Karen (2014). Fields of blood: Religion and the history of violence
*Harari, Y. N. (2015) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
*Naimark, N.M. (2016) Genocide: A World History (New Oxford World History) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition
*Wachtel, A.B. (2008) The Balkans in World History (New Oxford World History) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

In-Person Options

Wednesdays - In-Person

9:30 am - In-Person

WORLD ON FIRE? EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST
George Brown. Ph.D. (International Relations), retired President/CEO of Friendship Force, Travel Coordinator, Member, SUGA

In past years George Brown has followed the Foreign Policy Association’s annual Great Decisions program. This year he is taking a different approach, focusing on America’s role in Europe and the Middle East. The course will address three key questions for American foreign policy: (1) Russia, Ukraine and the future of NATO; (2) Gaza and the future of Israel/Palestine; and (3) the future of democracy in Eastern Europe (and beyond).
The first class will provide an overview, with two or more weeks dedicated to each topic. Selected readings will be announced for each topic, and group discussion will be encouraged.

TEN TUDOR QUEENS
Mary Radford, Law Professor (retired), Georgia State University, Member, SUGA

King Henry VIII is indisputably the most recognized figure of the Tudor period of English history (1485-1603). This course is not about his story, however, but about her story – or, more accurately, their stories. Ten dynamic women – all of whom were related to Henry VIII by marriage or by blood – influenced and, in many cases, altered the religious and political landscape of this period. This course will explore the lives of Henry’s six wives as well as those of his two daughters, Elizabeth I and Mary I, and two of his grand-nieces, Lady Jane Grey and Mary, Queen of Scots. Each of these women held a claim to the title of “Queen of England.” The reign of one lasted almost 44 years, while the reign of another only nine days. All but one of them were married but, among the ten of them, only four of their children survived to adulthood. Four of these women met their deaths by execution. Their personal triumphs and, in many cases, disastrous ends will be explored against the backdrop of the political intrigue, religious upheaval, and international conflict that defined the Tudor Era.

11:00 AM - In-Person

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES & OUR SHARED NATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Jim McSweeney, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), retired.

This course will begin with an overview of NARA and its online catalog, and will feature digitized images and “treasures” documenting the American experience. During the opening session attendees will be introduced to Presidents, scientists, bootleggers, farmers, and the anonymous heroes of our past. A Works Project Administration artist and the mural he created for Ellis Island in the mid-1930s will serve as the focal point for examining life in America between the end of WWI and the advent of WWII. Via archival resources from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and other cultural institutions, weekly sessions will examine the Jazz Age, the Stock Market crash and the Great Depression, The New Deal, the federally-subsidized arts programs of the New Deal, and a world on the brink of war. The final session will be a working family history “lab” to help attendees better undertake their own research interests and discover ancestors waiting to be found.

GREAT PHOTOS! GREAT ART? TWO FOUR-WEEK CLASSES
Jeff Milsteen, Attorney, photographer

PICTURING PRESIDENTS: THE OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS (four sessions)
This course will focus on the men and women who have been responsible for photographing our presidents and documenting their time in office. We’ll explore the history of presidential photographers, how the presidents used and interacted with those photographers, and learn the stories behind some of the most iconic presidential photographs ever taken. Join us for this fun and fascinating look behind the lens at one of the most challenging jobs in the West Wing!

AN IDIOT LOOKS AT CONTEMPORARY ART! (four sessions)
Join Jeff for a marginally informed and sometimes humorous look at what passes for art these days. We’ll trace the evolution of art to what is now generally known as contemporary art and explore its many facets — the good, the bad and the ugly. If you’ve ever looked at a piece of contemporary art and said, “I could do that!” or “I can’t believe someone paid money for that,” this may be the class for you!

Fridays - In-Person

9:30 am - In-Person

EIGHT VIRTUAL CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY FIELD TRIPS
John Allensworth, PhD, Geography, Kent State & GSU. (retired), Member, SUGA

Week 1: “A Grand Tour of Greece”
Week 2: “From Mexico’s Sonora Northward”
Week 3: “The Volga Valley from its Headwaters to the Caspian Sea”
Week 4: “China and its World View: A Classic Example of Political Geography”
Week 5: “Cuba, Including Miami’s Little Havana”
Week 6: “Chicago: City of Big Shoulders”
Week 7: “The Silk Roads from Venice to Xian”
Week 8: “From Cairo to the Headwaters of the Nile”

THE ALGONQUIN ROUND TABLE
Ellery McLanahan, Member, SUGA

Ellery McLanahan, an American Studies major at Yale University, brings us a new class on American literature. The first four classes are on the origins of 20th century fiction as featured in The New Yorker, the Algonquin Round Table, New Journalism revisited and The Paris Review. The following four classes will include a general class presentation and discussion of these 20th century novels: Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy, and Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full (set in Atlanta).

11:00 AM - In-Person

REVISTING 20th & 21st CENTURY ART, ARCHITECTURE, AND DESIGN
Allan Hing, Professor of Design

Another look to how the effects of society, politics, economics, and culture have directed the aesthetics of this and the last centuries. Expanded research has given more definition to modern and contemporary movements. It is also important to cover the current state of the arts, architecture, and design and what is NEW.

“OPEN SING” – A SING-ALONG
Terry Carpenter, Lifelong musician (violoncello, guitar, percussion and choral singing)

Add some singing to your day. It will raise your spirits, release some endorphins and make the rest of your day go better. We welcome experienced singers, shower-singers, and people who think they can’t sing at all. Our songbooks, Rise Up Singing and Rise Again, include folk songs, ballads, country music, show tunes, peace and freedom songs, love songs, sea chanties and more. We’ll sing your favorites and teach you some new ones. Both books are available from RiseUpandSing or at local bookstores. We will have free loaner books for those who don’t have their own. WARNING: Can be addictive!

Book Club

Book club meetings are held at Rehoboth Baptist Church following class on each date listed below. Meetings start around 12:10 pm (after bathroom break!); usually in room A/B, but “listen for announcement”.

Anyone is invited to join the club and should notify Kay so she will add you to the Book club email list.

Spring Term

March 13

Foster &/or Antarctica
By Claire Keegan

*”Foster” is a short book; therefore, another book by the same author is included. “Antarctica” is short stories. Read one or both!