We will celebrate and compare two highly successful soul music labels. Berry Gordy’s Motown, the premier 1960's independent label, originated in Detroit - think Stevie Wonder, Supremes, Temptations, Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye. Motown presented a slicker product, designed to “crossover” to white audiences. Memphis-based Stax was rawer, reflecting its Mississippi Delta roots with the likes of Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, Carla & Rufus Thomas and Albert King.

Professor Uscinski will discuss current and historical conspiracy theories in the United States. Using extensive public opinion polls and other data, Uscinski will show how many Americans believe which conspiracy theories and for what reasons.

Alpern is the daughter of a Dutch Holocaust survivor mother and an Evangelical father from Indiana, who divorced early in her childhood. She discusses her memoir about an estranged father and daughter learning to communicate across the cultural divide in America.  A related essay in the book recounts a Dutch mother’s escape from the Nazis to Surinam and her daughter’s struggle to break free from her mother’s trauma.  Lisa Moses Leff, Professor of History, American University, calls the book “... beautiful and compelling ...” 

Alan Turing, in developing one of the first electronic computers, pondered the possibility that such a machine might be able someday to be conscious. His "imitation game", better known as the Turing test, was the first attempt at understanding what it might mean for a machine to have a mind and how we could determine if it does. We will examine the life and work of Turing and the questions of artificial intelligence that emerge from it.

Saint-Saens has given the world gorgeous piano concertos, the dramatic Organ Symphony, and delightful and humorous musical paintings of swans, fossils, and the aquatic world. He was a brilliant arranger, organist, and pianist. An hour dedicated to his sense of melody and beauty will be a musical treat!  (For more Friday night music programs, see class #624, 656, 669, 698, 706.)

Well over one million people in the former British colony of Hong Kong marched in demonstrations in 2019 to protest an impending extradition bill. The proposed legislation would place the Hong Kong people and visitors under mainland Chinese jurisdiction, undermining the autonomy of the region and citizens' rights and freedoms. This lecture traces the British takeover in 1860, the building of Hong Kong into an independent, freedom-loving region, and the terms of the British retrocession in 1997.

The journey to the rise of civilization began 10,000 years ago in the Near East with the Neolithic Revolution, when humans embarked on the transformation from mobile-dispersed hunter-gatherers to settled village farmers. Humans domesticated plants and animals and they, in turn, became a domesticated species. The lecture will cover the research, the theories, and the process of dealing with this second transformation of the human career.  We will take a detailed look at Jericho, the best documented Neolithic site.  For other classes in the Revolution series, see class #658 and #701.

Robert McCartney returns to give us an update on politics and other topics in the D.C, area, including the hot Virginia governor’s race, a look ahead to Maryland and D.C. races next year, the status of Larry Hogan’s plan to widen the Beltway and I-270, and how the area is recovering from the economic and other impacts of the covid-19 pandemic.

Is it o.k. to enjoy Woody Allen movies? Do a President’s moral indiscretions erase their political accomplishments? Should anyone’s decades-old racist Tweet tarnish them for life? Or do those behaviors get them “canceled?” Join Congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar and philosophy professor Peter Bolland for an on-stage exploration of the dynamics of redemption. What if it is possible to heal the wounds you’ve caused and rebuild trust? What do the world’s wisdom traditions suggest as concrete steps toward authentic reconciliation?

The new age of computing means we barely ever store things on our devices anymore.  Instead, we keep our beloved photos, documents, and videos in the ubiquitous cloud. However, cloud computing takes many forms and it can become confusing to figure out how to get the most of each service. This class covers the biggest and best of cloud computing and will teach you to navigate these online services.

A generation after the trailblazing work of the Impressionists in France, American painters, here and abroad, had made Impressionism their own. American painters began to paint in broken brushwork and sun-drenched palettes. Members of a group called The Ten exhibited together for 20 years. By the end of that time, Impressionism, French or American, was not longer avant-garde. In fact, in the face of the Armory Show, Cubism and Abstraction, Impressionism was pretty passé.

Both in its history and its current makeup, Morocco is significantly different from the rest of the Arab World.  The country stands out with its unique ethnic mixture of Arabs and Berbers, distance from the Arab heartland and moderate monarchy.  Morocco has weathered the ongoing changes better than most of its Arab brothers and is likely to continue on this path.

The son of Jewish immigrants and a dropout from high school, Julius Rosenwald helped establish Sears, Roebuck as the retailing juggernaut of the earlier twentieth century. He used his vast wealth to help others in need, especially African Americans, helping to establish nearly 5000 schools in 15 Southern states. The Rosenwald Park Campaign has made great strides in the last few years toward its mission of creating the Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park with a visitor center in Chicago and a small number of Rosenwald Schools.

Costa Rica Native Jorge Bogantes Montero helps us experience the magic of his home country. Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea in the Ring of Fire, Costa Rica has been shaped by plate tectonics and volcanic activity, resulting in complex biogeography and extravagant biodiversity that makes a naturalist feel like a kid in a candy store. This program is in partnership with and hosted by the Audubon Naturalist Society.

A former regional marketing director for United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Columbia Pictures, Andy Friedenberg worked to drum up excitement and awareness for upcoming films through celebrity tours, research test screenings, and world premieres. In this riveting presentation, Andy will discuss his experiences working with Brooke Shields during the promotion of The Blue Lagoon and Charlton Heston during the promotion of The Mountain Men.

Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest play but also one of his strongest.  The power couple at the center of this play allows ambition to lead them down the path to murder and, eventually, insanity.  Join Professor Kim Keeline as she examines the role of witchcraft in the play (and how King James influenced the play) and whether the Macbeths ever had children.  Macbeth is more than "sound and fury, signifying nothing."  Come learn just what it does signify and why it continues to be an important play for our times. (For another Shakespeare Play Analysis, see class #690.)

It can be argued that the civil rights leader that brought about the most significant, lasting change in the 20th century is Thurgood Marshall.  Beginning his legal work with the NAACP in 1934, Thurgood Marshall often at great personal risk won case after case bringing justice to black Americans.  Culminating with his victory in the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954, Marshall more than anyone else brought an end to legal segregation in the United States.  Appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967, Marshall joined the fraternity of liberal justices that guaranteed the Constitutional rights of all Americans.

We eat healthy for our heart, to lose weight or even prevent diabetes, so what about for our brain? Learn about the nutrients (and foods) we should be including to keep our brains in top form as we age.

The French and Indian War was a war for the future of America; an epic struggle between Britain and France for control of the American continent. Unfolding over the two decades before the Revolution, the French and Indian War sowed the seeds of the imperial crisis that would soon culminate in American independence.

The tale of the siege of Troy as told by Homer in the Iliad is the oldest work of literature in the western world. But there is another story almost as exciting - the modern quest behind the reality of Homer's epic. This lecture will explore archeological efforts to prove that Troy did exist and that the Trojan War was real.