SUNDAYS AT JASA: Fall Semester 2024
September 29th - December 15th, 2024
Marymount Manhattan College (221 East 71st Street, New York, NY 10021)
Classes are offered in person on Sundays at Marymount Manhattan College and virtually on Mondays and Wednesdays. Please see below for the list of course descriptions to learn more about each course.
Register Here!
Sundays: In-Person Classes at Marymount Manhattan College
The Opera Companion
10:00am - 11:55am: Instructor Jane Marsh
Join internationally renowned opera singer, Jane Marsh, for an in-depth view of the Met Opera Season 2024-25, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Massenet, Tchaikovsky, and more. This semester will showcase great operas of the Classical, Bel Canto, Romantic, and Modern eras. The languages will be enhanced by DVD-AUDIO sound clips, plus English subtitles for easy translations. This class is ideal for people who are enthusiastic about opera and want to expand their basic understanding of these classics. Come one, come all.
LGBTQ Studies: Past and Present
10:00am - 11:00am: Instructor Jasmina Sinanovic
Join Jasmina for a trip through human history through the eyes of LGBTQ people. This course will begin with LGBTQ prehistory and end with today. This course will also highlight many individuals who are a part of this history and how contemporary movements were created. Conversations will be had about the roots of prejudice against gender non-conforming people, as well as attempts to erode the rights of LGBTQ individuals. This class is open to everyone interested in exploring often hidden parts of human history.
Art Appreciation
10:15am - 11:30am: Instructor Pamela Koehler
Join Pam this semester for a weekly look at art exhibits and events taking place in, and beyond the city. This course will cover weekly highlights of exhibitions and art events in the New York area, and explore international exhibitions, museums, architecture, and world heritage sites as well. This course will also look at efforts in conservation aimed at securing works of art for future generations. The class format includes slide and digital presentations, careful looking, and lively discussion.
Mass Media and American Culture
11:10am - 12:10pm: Instructor Jasmina Sinanovic
With the explosion of digital media and less attention to print and radio, America has been going through a major cultural transformation. This course will cover mass media (print, radio, TV, and digital) and how the new forms have impacted American discourse. In a time when anyone can create news, the dynamics have shifted. How do different types of media function to combat fake news and why do things go viral? This course will review how the different media types function and the important impacts it has on American society.
Acting: The Art of Persuasion
1:30pm - 3:00pm: Instructor Kathy Fiorito
What does it mean to act? Each character is trying to convince other characters and the audience of something they want. Learn the principles of acting in this beginner-to-intermediate-level course. Acting principles including character motivation, script analysis, monologues, scene study, and play reading will be explored in this course. Students are encouraged to bring their own material to work on but acting materials will be provided.
What Just Happened? The News Today
1:30pm - 2:45pm: Instructor Bill Hughes
This course will feature a weekly analysis of the major and not-so-major news stories of the week with a veteran journalist. The analysis will derive from a multitude of news sources from all political perspectives sprinkled with some of the funnier observations by late-night commentators. This course will also delve into the disparities and motivations behind news coverage in print, radio, TV, and online sources.
Baroque Music Masterpieces
1:30pm - 3:00pm: Instructor Alexander Pichugin
(5 Weeks, October 6th - November 10th, 2024)
Explore the vibrant and expressive world of Baroque music through our engaging five-lecture series, “Baroque Music Masterpieces.” This course delves into the rich tapestry of compositions from the Baroque era, focusing on in-depth analyses of seminal works by Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi, François Couperin, Georg Fridrich Händel, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Each session will unravel the historical context, musical structure, and emotional depth of these masterpieces, offering a great opportunity to understand the innovation, artistry, and cultural significance of the Baroque period. From the dramatic opera of L’Orfeo to the lyrical beauty of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the reconciliatory L’Apothéose de Lully by Couperin, the uplifting choruses of Handel’s Messiah, and the philosophical depth of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, this course will enrich your appreciation for one of the most fascinating eras in music history.
Whether you’re a seasoned music lover or a curious beginner, this course is designed to captivate and inspire.
History of Dance
1:30pm - 2:45pm: Instructor Lars Rosager
(4 Weeks, November 17th - December 5th, 2024)
This course focuses on acquiring a general knowledge of dance history from its beginnings to contemporary times. Participants are encouraged to think critically about social and cultural factors affecting stylistic developments in dance history, such as geography, politics, economics, and fashion. This course explores different genres including indigenous dance, the ancient Greeks, folk dance, renaissance court dance, ragtime dances, classical ballet, Broadway, and jazz.
Mondays: Online Virtual Courses
The Supreme Court: Law and Politics Collide
10:00am - 11:00am: instructor Leora Harpaz
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has involved itself in a number of controversies that have significant political ramifications, which was particularly true in many of the Court’s decisions in this most recent Term. In addition to the two Trump cases raising the issues of ballot access and presidential immunity, there were many others involving gun rights, abortion, restrictions on the power of federal administrative agencies, and a series of First Amendment free speech cases. The Court disposed of several high-profile cases without reaching the merits or wrote a limited opinion that remanded the case to the lower court to resolve many of the key issues in the first instance. This course will examine the political significance of the Court's recent actions, as well as look ahead to other issues that may reach the Court.
On Human Flourishing – A Philosophical Sojourn through Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
11:15am - 12:30pm: Instructor Greg Canada
What does it mean to be happy? To live a life well-lived? In this 9-week course where we explore one of the most important books on this topic: Aristotle’s “Nichomachean Ethics.” Through close readings and in-depth conversations, we will explore what one of the most influential philosophers had to say about human nature, the importance of friendship, the meaning of the good, and the virtues necessary for happiness.
Shakespeare: Henry IV Part I
1:00pm - 2:00pm: Instructor Leo Schaff
Prince Hal, the future king of England, a fifteenth-century wild child who keeps company with criminals and commoners, helps his juvenile friends rob his father's treasury and spends all his time in seedy bars. This, of course, all takes place before Prince Hal's glorious "reformation," when he transforms himself from a total disgrace into a noble leader, who helps put down a rebel uprising that threatens his father's reign, and kills the guy who’s been bad-mouthing him all over England. Instructor Leo Schaff will lead the class in reading and group discussion of one of Shakespeare’s endearing master works with his marvelous character Falstaff leading the way.
Creative Writing
2:15pm - 3:30pm: Instructor Leo Schaff
This course calls on writers of all stripes, persuasions, and experiences. Memoirs, poetry, short stories, song lyrics, and letters to the editor are all welcome. Find inspiration through art, music, current events, or simply hearing each other’s work. Writers are helped through writing prompts to help guide topics if needed. When it comes to writing, everything is on the table.
Wednesdays: Online Virtual Courses
Elements of Theater: The Political
10:00am - 11:30am Instructor Joe George
When art and politics collide a theatrical revolution may occur or we just may learn something about ourselves. This course will examine various political topics within modern and classical theater through reading, analysis, and group discussion. Antigone, written by Sophocles in 442 B.C., explores fanaticism and what happens when political agents fail to uphold political integrity, failing to moderate excessive behavior. Carol Churchill’s Far Away, written in 2000, is a fascinating contemporary play about the fear imposed by a government upon its citizens. These two masterworks are theatrical, entertaining, and timely. This course will examine what they reflect in us today.
NYC Short Stories
11:45am - 1:00pm Instructor Jennifer Gilchrist
New York is a city of millions of stories of hope, dreams, fear, anger, despair, romance, luck, creativity, humor, and resilience. What better setting for the literary short story? With an emphasis on perspective and internal logic, we read and analyze short works of mystery, fable, naturalism, comedy, satire, irony, character study, romance, and social realism by diverse New Yorkers such as Stephen Crane, Walter Mosley, Isaac Asimov, Yohanca Delgado, Steven Millhauser, Laurie Colwin, Bharati Mukherjee, Dawn Powell, William Maxwell, and Richard Yates.
Great Moments in Musical Theater and More
1:15pm - 2:30pm: Instructor Kim Breden
Participants will enjoy a deep look into great moments in musical theater history, past and present. Shows and performers from Gypsy, Hello Dolly, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story, as well as lesser-known or more recent shows like The Light in the Piazza, The Book of Mormon, The Secret Garden, and Will Rogers' Follies will be covered in this course. With the use of performance videos, sound recordings, still photographs, and historical lectures this class will offer the opportunity to experience an array of showtune favorites. Feel free to sing along.
New York City Planning: Controlling Chaos
3:00pm - 4:00pm: Instructor Mitch Korbey
New York City real estate development is subject to a plethora of rules and regulations, yet it remains an “as-of-right” town, where builders can construct massive towers with little local input and control. Tall towers and sprawling development projects are proposed and built in midtown; Brooklyn’s downtown is now a mega-city itself; Long Island City in Queens has transformed from an industrial hub to a high-rise residential community; the Harlem River waterfront in the Bronx shows that far from “burning”, the Bronx is “booming” – and even Staten Island is now the size of Kansas City. How does the city control its growth? What role does the Mayor play – and where does the legislative branch fit in? How do the zoning and historical districts, and the city’s planning commission control growth and development?
Get A Clue: Crossword Construction
4:15pm - 5:30pm: Instructor Natan Last
Learn the principles of crossword puzzle construction through basic history, determining a theme, making a usable grid, and creating the fill. A group puzzle will be submitted to the New York Times. More than twenty puzzles have been featured in the Times thus far! Will Shortz has hailed this class as “one of a kind.”
Registration is capped at 25 students.