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Curriculum History

2014-2013   2012- 2010   2009- 2007   2006- 2004   2003- 2001   2000- 1998   1997- 1995

Fall Term 2009

Patricia Ward, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Emerita
“Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson in France”

William Pratt, Professor of English, Emeritus, Miami University
“Faulkner’s Mythical Kingdom”

-Katie Delmez, Frist Center Curator
“Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris”
-Susan Edwards, Director and CEO of the Frist Center
“Surrealism and Psychoanalysis”
-Kelli Shay Hix, Film Archivist at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
“Surrealism and Surrealist Film in 1920s and 1930s Paris”
-Tour of the Exhibition
-Michael Bess, Chancellor’s Professor of History
“The Center Cannot Hold: Europe between Two World Wars, 1924-1039”
-Lisa Weiss, Assistant Director of the W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and
Modern French Studies and Lecturer in French
“The Surrealist Literary Movement in Paris”

Randall Yearwood, Retired Architect
“Eight Buildings in Washington, D.C.”

Mark Jarman, Centennial Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing
“Southern Poetry: The Fugitives to the Present”

Rick Chappell, Research Professor of Physics
“The Adventures of Exploration in America”

John Bridges, Writer, Musician, and Historian
“History of Country Music”

Frank Wcislo, Dean of the Commons and Associate Professor of History
“History of the Soviet Union”

Victor Judge, Lecturer, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
“The Writing Life”

Spring Term 2009

Ben Adams, Member, Discussion Leader
Mary Pat Silveira, Member and Retired UN Official, Discussion Leader
“Great Decisions 2009: Foreign Policy Discussion Group”

Robert Covington, Professor of Law, Emeritus
“A Century of Crime: English Language Mystery Fiction to 1950”

John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy
“Fundamentals of Morality”

Gerry Calhoun, Petroleum Geologist
“Another Look at Energy Issues”

Jeff Stein, Lecturer, Department of Film Studies
“Family on Film Part II: Myth, Change, Parenting and What Works”

Victor Judge, Lecturer, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
“Scriptio Divina: The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, S. J.

Various Members of the Vanderbilt Faculty
“Perspectives on America: Past and Present”
-Jane Landers, Associate Professor of History
“Big Prince Whitten, An African in the Age of Atlantic Revolution”
-Richard Blackett, Andrew Jackson Professor of History
“Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad”
-Rachel Donelson, Ph.D. Student, Dept of History
“Of, By and For the People: The Culture of the 1930s”
-Gary Gerstle, James Stahlman Professor of History
“America’s Encounter with Immigrants”
-Thomas A. Schwartz, Professor of History
“President Obama’s World: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary 
American Foreign Policy”
-Erwin Hargrove, Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
“Realism and Idealism in Policymaking”

Winter Term 2009

Gil Campbell, OLLI at Vanderbilt Board Member
“Troubled Genius: The Career of Orson Welles”

Michael Kreyling, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English
“The Gone with the Wind Mythology”

Peter Lorge, Senior Lecturer in History
“Guns and Gunpowder in Asian History”

Carole Bucy, Associate Professor of History and Chair of History Department, Volunteer State Community College
“The Early Years of the Republic: The United States from 1780-1845”

Joe Sills, Retired from Career with the United Nations
“Foreign Policy in the New Administration”

Ann Jennalie Cook Calhoun, Professor of English, Emerita
“Shakespeare Films”

Fall Term 2008

Bob McNeilly, Member of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
“Richard Wagner, Sociopathic Genius”

Patricia A. Ward, Professor Emerita of French and Comparative Literature
“Americans in Paris, 1865-1955”

Mitiku Adisu, Editor and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Higher Education
“Rediscovering Africa”

Class Taught by Different Instructors from Vanderbilt
“Medicine, Health, and Society”
-Arleen Tuchman, History
“Diabetes, Race, and Ethnicity: Lessons from History”
-David Boyd, Medicine, Health and Society
“Death, Dying, and Shifts in Meaning”
-Larry Churchill, Biomedical Ethics
“Ethics at the End of Life: Who Should Decide What is Too Much?”
-Beth Conklin, Anthropology
“Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Death and Mourning”
-Holly Tucker, French and Italian
“Doctors’ Stories”
-Ruth Rogaski, History
“A History of Qi (Ch’i) in China and America”

Rick Chappell, Director of the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory
Bob O’Dell, the original NASA Chief Scientist for the Hubble and a Distinguished Research Professor of Astronomy
“Magnificent Time Machine: The Year of the Hubble Space Telescope”

Elaine Goleski, Teacher and former staff member, Jean and Alexander Heard Library
“Who am I?: Studies in First-Person Narration”

Jim Charlet, Moderator
“Future Gazing in a Rear View Mirror”
-Clint Brewer, Executive Editor of Nashville City Paper, and Past President, National Society for Professional Journalists
“The Presidential Debates Have Ended: What Did We See?”
-William P. Alexander, Brentwood Attorney, Longtime Member of the Tennessee Export Council, and international Commercial Arbitrator
“To Trade, or Not to Trade: What’s our Competitive Interest?”
-Tom Griscom, Editor and Publisher, Chattanooga Times News Free Press, President, Tennessee Press Association, and Former White House Communications Director
“Presidential Transitions: The Election is Over, What Now America?”
-John Morgan, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury
“Tennessee Education at its Crossroads: Compete or Surrender”
-Jeff Bridges, Partner, Carr, Riggs & Ingram
“Staying Alive to Cheat the Estate Tax”
-David Hudson, Legal Counsel, The First Amendment Center
“Life with The Supremes: A Review of the High Court’s Recent Term”

Randall Yearwood, Retired Architect
“The Vanderbilt Family and the Mansions They Built”

Spring Term 2008

Ben Adams, Member, Discussion Leader
“Great Decisions 2008: Foreign Policy Discussion Group”

Victor Judge, Lecturer, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
“Religious Themes in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson”

Jeff Stein, Founding Faculty Member of the Watkins College Film School
“Myth and the American Family in the Movies”

Bob Duncan, County Historian and Director – Maury County Archives
“Deciphering Your Family History”

Arnold M. Heiser, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Emeritus
“The Milky Way, Galaxies, and the Large Scale Structure of the Observable Universe"
Marc K. Stengel, Writer and Translator from the Welsh
“The Dragon Has Two Tongues: An Introduction to Anglo-Welsh Literature”

Willy Stern, Journalist
“Investigative Reporting: An Insider’s Guide”

Tim Johnson, Professor of History, Lipscomb University
“Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War”

Winter Term 2008

Ann Jennalie Cook Calhoun, Professor of English, Emerita
“Shakespeare Films”

Bart Victor, Cal Turner Professor of Moral Leadership
“21st Century Business Ethics”

Gene Policinski, Vice President and Executive Director of the First Amendment Center
“The First Amendment in the 21st Century”

Sam McSeveney, Professor of History, Emeritus
“The Southern War of Independence, 1861-1865”

Robert K. Oermann, Author
“How Nashville Became ‘Music City’”

Fall Term 2007

Donald Menchise, Retired English Professor, Tennessee State University
“Revisiting Prominent Lyric Poetry”

William Pratt, Professor of English, Emeritus, Miami University
“Irish Literature”

John Geer, Professor of Political Science
“The Road to the White House”

Randall Yearwood, Retired Architect
“Architecture – People, Places and Things”

Jeanette Norden, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
“Brain Development Throughout Life”

Robert Mode, Associate Professor, History of Art
“Great Artists – Myths and Missions”

Joseph Hamilton, Professor of Physics
Richard Haglund, Professor of Physics
“Primer of Physics and its Application to Society”

Marshall Eakin, Professor of History
“The Conquest of the Americas”

Summer Term 2007

Paul K. Conkin, Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus
“American Agriculture in the 20th Century”

James E. Auer, Director of VIPPS Center for U.S.–Japan Studies and Cooperation
“U.S.-Japan Relations”

Paul Gherman, University Librarian
“Mining the Web: Enriching Your Life through Internet Resources”

Spring Term 2007

Ben Adams, Member, Discussion Leader
“Great Decisions 2007: Foreign Policy Discussion Group”

Gottlieb C. Friesinger, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus
“Evolution of Medical Education”

Jane L. Landers, Associate Professor of History
“Comparative Slavery in the Americas”

Gerry Calhoun, Certified Petroleum Geologist
“All About Energy”

Arnold M. Heiser, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Emeritus
“Planets, Planets, and More Planets!”

Peg Duthie, Writer and Editor
“Placetne, J. K. Rowling? The Worlds of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harry Potter”

Barbara C. Bowen, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Emerita
“Utopias and Dystopias, from Gilgamesh to Margaret Atwood”

Victor Judge, Divinity School Registrar, and Editor of The Spire
“The Moral Complexities of Henrik Ibsen’s Drama, The Wild Duck

Winter Term 2007

Dan Church, Professor of French
“The Films of Louis Malle (from France to Exile, and Back)”

John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy 
“Great Philosophers of the Nineteenth Century”

Robert Drews, Professor of Classics, Emeritus
“History and Language: The Indo-Europeanizing of Europe”

Carole Bucy, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department, Volunteer State Community College
“The Constitution: The History of a Living Document”

Christine Mather, Writer
“Women in Theatre: Exit the Actress”

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