Study Group participants will watch a recent international film by a well-known director that contains surreal, cryptic or enigmatic components that make the viewer question the film's content and meaning.

Facilitator: Marganit Weinberger-Rotman worked for Israeli Television for many years and attends the International Jerusalem Film Festival every year. She has facilitated many OLLI study groups including Israeli cinema, French comedies, German, Iranian, Middle Eastern films, films on refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, Eastern European films, and films about people with special needs.

What have recent scholars learned about Nubia/Kush that scholars of the past got wrong? Why was Nubia/Kush not given credit for its contributions to civilization? Those are a few of the questions we will ponder as we follow the development of the ancient history and art of inhabitants of the Nile Valley. The earliest inhabitants of the Nile Valley lived side by side, eventually uniting to create Egypt north of Aswan and what later became known as Nubia or Kush in the south. For years, Euro-centric scholars concentrated on Egypt, teaching that Egypt’s culture had been established by people from the East of Africa, not by inhabitants from within Africa. Egypt was thus included in the history of Western civilization rather than with the history of Africa. Early archeologists also taught that the Nubian/Kushite culture they found below Egypt had been produced by Egyptians, not by black-skinned inhabitants of that area. In this Study Group, we will look at recent information about Nubia/Kush that reveals a different story. Nubia/Kush became an independent highly advanced, ancient African civilization that rivaled ancient Egypt in wealth, power, and cultural development. Their art solidifies that story. We will even see that Kushites ruled as Pharaohs of Egypt for almost a century during the 25th Dynasty and left their artistic mark in Egypt. Because the art and history from Nubia/Kush and Egypt are so intertwined, we will be reviewing the art and history of Egypt as we go along.

Facilitator: Sharon is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, and a State of Illinois licensed Interior Designer who was co-owner of a furniture and design business for over 35 years. She has an interest in investigating art history and hopes to share her knowledge and learn from other OLLI members. Presently, she is a member of the OLLI Advisory Council where she serves as Liaison to the Marketing Committee. She has participated in numerous study groups and courses and has facilitated over 25 art history study groups.

What have recent scholars learned about Nubia/Kush that scholars of the past got wrong? Why was Nubia/Kush not given credit for its contributions to civilization? Those are a few of the questions we will ponder as we follow the development of the ancient history and art of inhabitants of the Nile Valley. The earliest inhabitants of the Nile Valley lived side by side, eventually uniting to create Egypt north of Aswan and what later became known as Nubia or Kush in the south. For years, Euro-centric scholars concentrated on Egypt, teaching that Egypt’s culture had been established by people from the East of Africa, not by inhabitants from within Africa. Egypt was thus included in the history of Western civilization rather than with the history of Africa. Early archeologists also taught that the Nubian/Kushite culture they found below Egypt had been produced by Egyptians, not by black-skinned inhabitants of that area. In this Study Group, we will look at recent information about Nubia/Kush that reveals a different story. Nubia/Kush became an independent highly advanced, ancient African civilization that rivaled ancient Egypt in wealth, power, and cultural development. Their art solidifies that story. We will even see that Kushites ruled as Pharaohs of Egypt for almost a century during the 25th Dynasty and left their artistic mark in Egypt. Because the art and history from Nubia/Kush and Egypt are so intertwined, we will be reviewing the art and history of Egypt as we go along.

Facilitator: Sharon is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, and a State of Illinois licensed Interior Designer who was co-owner of a furniture and design business for over 35 years. She has an interest in investigating art history and hopes to share her knowledge and learn from other OLLI members. Presently, she is a member of the OLLI Advisory Council where she serves as Liaison to the Marketing Committee. She has participated in numerous study groups and courses and has facilitated over 25 art history study groups.

In The Second Battle for Africa, Erik S. McDuffie establishes the importance of the US Midwest to twentieth-century global Black history, internationalism, and radicalism. McDuffie shows how cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, as well as rural areas in the heartland, became central and enduring incubators of Marcus Garvey’s Black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and its offshoots. Throughout the region, Black thinkers, activists, and cultural workers, like the Grenada-born activist Louise Little, championed Black freedom. McDuffie explores Garveyism and its changing facets from the 1920s onward, including the role of Black midwesterners during the emergence of fascism in the 1930s, the postwar US Black Freedom Movement and African decolonization, the rise of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X in the 1950s and 1960s, and the continuing legacy of Garvey in today’s Black Midwest. Throughout, McDuffie evaluates the possibilities, limitations, and gendered contours of Black nationalism, radicalism, and internationalism in the UNIA and Garvey-inspired movements. In so doing, he unveils new histories of Black liberation and Global Africa.

 

 

In The Second Battle for Africa, Erik S. McDuffie establishes the importance of the US Midwest to twentieth-century global Black history, internationalism, and radicalism. McDuffie shows how cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, as well as rural areas in the heartland, became central and enduring incubators of Marcus Garvey’s Black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and its offshoots. Throughout the region, Black thinkers, activists, and cultural workers, like the Grenada-born activist Louise Little, championed Black freedom. McDuffie explores Garveyism and its changing facets from the 1920s onward, including the role of Black midwesterners during the emergence of fascism in the 1930s, the postwar US Black Freedom Movement and African decolonization, the rise of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X in the 1950s and 1960s, and the continuing legacy of Garvey in today’s Black Midwest. Throughout, McDuffie evaluates the possibilities, limitations, and gendered contours of Black nationalism, radicalism, and internationalism in the UNIA and Garvey-inspired movements. In so doing, he unveils new histories of Black liberation and Global Africa.

 

 

Ever wonder what happens behind the scenes at your local art museum? Why are some works of art forever in storage and others put on display in perpetuity? How are exhibition topics chosen? What are some of the obstacles and secret joys of this sort of museum work? Learn this and more from curator Maureen Warren, who will reveal the methodology, concerns, and ethics of creating fine art exhibitions.

Maureen Warren is curator of European and American art at Krannert Art Museum.  She is a specialist in early modern (1500-1700) European art, especially seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art.  She has curated exhibitions at KAM about medieval manuscripts, Dutch political prints, Chinese ceramics, the ink paintings of Shozo Sato, and more.

Ever wonder what happens behind the scenes at your local art museum? Why are some works of art forever in storage and others put on display in perpetuity? How are exhibition topics chosen? What are some of the obstacles and secret joys of this sort of museum work? Learn this and more from curator Maureen Warren, who will reveal the methodology, concerns, and ethics of creating fine art exhibitions.

Maureen Warren is curator of European and American art at Krannert Art Museum.  She is a specialist in early modern (1500-1700) European art, especially seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art.  She has curated exhibitions at KAM about medieval manuscripts, Dutch political prints, Chinese ceramics, the ink paintings of Shozo Sato, and more.

The facilitator will provide information about how the Electoral College works in today’s presidential elections and discuss whether it should be abolished. Topics to discuss include the constitutional provisions concerning the Electoral College, why the Founders chose this method and the impact of slavery, how the Electoral College system has played out over our history, the many defects in the Electoral College system, myths about the Electoral College, alternatives, and the way forward.

Facilitator:  Trisha Crowley has read many books, attended many programs, and presented many programs on the Electoral College, She facilitated an OLLI study group on this topic in 2020.

The most familiar form of optical microscopy uses visible light reflected from an object’s surface to obtain an image of that object.  To measure features on an object’s surface which are smaller than visible light can see, other forms of observation must be employed.  Atomic force microscopy is an imaging technique that relies on feel, not on photons.  Gently tracing the surface with a sharp probe (which is about a thousand times smaller than a record player stylus) allows this technique to measure surface textures on the scale of nanometers and to build up nanoscale 3D images of surfaces.

Lecturer:  Kathy Walsh spent time in several fields of physics before focusing on microscopy as a career.  She received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2013 (Scanning Probe Microscopy of Protein Nanowires) and came to work at the University of Illinois Materials Research Laboratory promptly thereafter. As a senior research scientist at the Materials Research Lab, she spends her days training researchers to use scientific instruments and helping them optimize their measurements. Her favorite thing to do with atomic force microscopy is to find out what ordinary, everyday objects look like on the nanoscale.

The most familiar form of optical microscopy uses visible light reflected from an object’s surface to obtain an image of that object.  To measure features on an object’s surface which are smaller than visible light can see, other forms of observation must be employed.  Atomic force microscopy is an imaging technique that relies on feel, not on photons.  Gently tracing the surface with a sharp probe (which is about a thousand times smaller than a record player stylus) allows this technique to measure surface textures on the scale of nanometers and to build up nanoscale 3D images of surfaces.

Lecturer:  Kathy Walsh spent time in several fields of physics before focusing on microscopy as a career.  She received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2013 (Scanning Probe Microscopy of Protein Nanowires) and came to work at the University of Illinois Materials Research Laboratory promptly thereafter. As a senior research scientist at the Materials Research Lab, she spends her days training researchers to use scientific instruments and helping them optimize their measurements. Her favorite thing to do with atomic force microscopy is to find out what ordinary, everyday objects look like on the nanoscale.

Professor Tempest will be examining the likely and possible outcomes of the US presidential election. His central argument is that any discussion of these issues will be inadequate unless it is set in the context of global developments from Brexit in 2016 to the recent decline in Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s political fortunes.

Lecturer:  Richard Tempest is a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was educated at the University of Oxford and is a former Director of the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center at Illinois. His interests include Russian and world history and culture, military history, and the political science of the body. Tempest is the author of Overwriting Chaos: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Fictive Worlds (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2019) as well as a campus fantasy adventure novel, Golden Bone (Moscow: NLO, 2004), which he wrote in Russian and published under the penname Roland Harrington.

Professor Tempest will be examining the likely and possible outcomes of the US presidential election. His central argument is that any discussion of these issues will be inadequate unless it is set in the context of global developments from Brexit in 2016 to the recent decline in Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s political fortunes.

Lecturer:  Richard Tempest is a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was educated at the University of Oxford and is a former Director of the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center at Illinois. His interests include Russian and world history and culture, military history, and the political science of the body. Tempest is the author of Overwriting Chaos: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Fictive Worlds (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2019) as well as a campus fantasy adventure novel, Golden Bone (Moscow: NLO, 2004), which he wrote in Russian and published under the penname Roland Harrington.