Senior Scholars Program

INTERSESSION 2012
Wednesdays, January 11-February 1 (4 weeks)
1:30-3:30 p.m.
The College Club of Cleveland

Donald Rosenberg
Music and dance writer for the Plain Dealer
President of the Music Critics Association of North America

The Orchestra in Opera
This course will explore how composers use the orchestra to establish atmosphere, support, and comment on the drama, evoke psychological states and, in the case of Wagner, serve as a reminder or harbinger of characters, objects and situations. The class will listen to audio excerpts and watch video clips of major operatic sequences in which the orchestra plays a crucial role in the narrative.

TUESDAY PART ONE
February 7 through February 28 (4 weeks)

Glenn Starkman, Ph.D. - February 7 and 28
Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Cyrus C. Taylor, Ph. D. – February 14
Albert A. Michelson Professor in Physics
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Kenneth D. Singer, Ph.D. - February 21
Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics
Professor of Macromolecular Science

Robert W. Brown, Ph.D. - March 6
Institute Professor and Distinguished University Professor
Department of Physics

A Physics Sampler: Stories about Life, the Universe, and Everything!
Three internationally renowned physicists from the Case Western Reserve University Department of Physics will talk about their work and lives as physicists. Starkman will address the nature of space: we look around us and see three directions -- forward/backward, up/down, left/right. But is that all there is to it? What does such a question mean? How can we set about answering it? Singer will discuss his current project on how curiosity driven physics research has led to technology that transformed society. Taylor will talk about particle physics, string theory, and entrepreneurship. And lastly, it is appropriate since we are using our brains to understand all of this, Brown will explain where all those headlines on what we are learning about our brain are coming from. It's MRI!

TUESDAY PART TWO
March 20 through April 24 (6 weeks)

Bernard Jim, Ph.D.
SAGES Lecturer, Department of History
Case Western Reserve University

Technologies of the City
Based on the premise that cities are never “finished,” and constantly being remade, Technologies of the City, looks at the technological and cultural history of cities. We will explore the history of building materials used in the construction of cities. We will trace the development of city infrastructure such as electricity, water and sewage systems, and bridges. We will move both geographically and temporally to visit the world’s great cities, studying examples of significant building projects such as the Brooklyn Bridge, and cover the history of the city-building professions: engineering, architecture, and urban planning.

WEDNESDAY PART ONE
February 8 through March 7 (5 weeks)

Narcisz Fejes, Ph.D.
SAGES Lecturer, Department of English
Case Western Reserve University

Celebrity! A Baker-Nord Seminar
This set of lectures will provide cultural context for the spring events and faculty seminar sponsored by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities (BNC). In this academic year, the Baker-Nord Center investigates the concepts of genius, celebrity, and fame. Questions to be posed include: are these concepts inclusive or exclusive? Do these concepts have enduring value or do they only reify existing power relations? By what processes does our culture identify, understand and preserve genius, celebrity and fame? This course will explore these questions in part by connecting to the different interdisciplinary perspectives contributed by the Center's seminar participants and invited speakers.

WEDNESDAY PART TWO
March 21 through April 25 (6 weeks)

Joseph F. Kelly, Ph.D.
Professor of Religious Studies
John Carroll University

The High Middle Ages, Continued
This course will focus on the thirteenth century, the peak of Medieval culture and history. It will deal with political events, such as the end of the Holy Land Crusades. It will also cover the long reigns of Henry III of England (1216-1272) and Louis IX of France (1226-1270), and how those two countries attained such influence in European history. The course will also look briefly at Ireland, Sicily, and the Latin Empire of Byzantium. The thirteenth century was also one of great cultural advances that included the fullest blooming of Gothic art, the flourishing of the troubadour movement and the rise of vernacular literature. The course will cover the development of the universities and the new philosophy and science that merged from that development.

THURSDAY PART ONE
February 9 through March 22 (6 weeks)

Terri Mester, Ph.D.
SAGES Lecturer, Department of English
Pre-law Adviser, Undergraduate Studies
Case Western Reserve University

The Birth of the Modern (1905-1935). This course focuses primarily on the arts during modernism (roughly, the period between the 2 World Wars) which many scholars claim was a time of revolutionary vision unmatched in the West since the Renaissance. Freud and Einstein were at work overturning our knowledge of the mind and the universe. In literature, Ulysses, The Waste Land and Mrs. Dalloway were creating a total break in technique from the fiction of the past. In art, Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso were turning out abstract images free from the restrictions of realism. And night after night in theaters across Europe and America, the Russian Ballet in the greatest days of Diaghilev and Nijinsky were enthralling their viewers. After an introduction to modernism’s historical, scientific, psychological contexts, the course will turn to study the major artistic contributors in dance, painting, short fiction, poetry, and film.

THURSDAY PART TWO
March 29 through April 26 (5 weeks)

Catherine Scallen, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Art History and Art
Case Western Reserve University
Rembrandt and Fame. The seventeenth-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn was famous in his own time, and has remained so to the present day. This course will seek to explain why his fame has been so long-lived and will examine what aspects of his art and life were appreciated in different eras. We will consider these questions in light of the two exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art from February to May 2012, Rembrandt in America and Rembrandt Prints from the Morgan Library and Museum, New York. Paintings and drawings in the exhibition will be featured in several of the class meetings.