By the start of the Civil War, photography was past its infancy and the field of photojournalism blossomed, documenting through the camera's lens the most consequential and astonishing events of the times. We will look at the greatest news photography of three centuries, the photos that brought the world's events to living rooms, and those that would revolutionize the world in ways big and small, from Antietam to charming portraiture to the "special operation" in Ukraine. Some images we will view of conflict and disaster contain strong content. 

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

What did Great-Grandpa do for a living? How big was his family? Were they rich or poor? What was their religion? Did their physical characteristics match those of the majority of the local population? Can you discover genealogy’s “Holy Grail”: Great-Grandma’s hometown somewhere in the world? Constructing a timeline for your ancestors will connect you with the geography, history, and culture in which they lived, bringing together your own family stories with the powerful search engines of the Internet.

We will sample the most popular genealogical websites as well as some unusual ones. This seminar is open to all, from beginners to professionals, and encourages an interactive exploration of your ancestors as well as their lives and times.    

Participants are encouraged to use personal laptops in class, working on their own projects while learning from conversation with others in the group.  

This small, short, experimental course reflects a fascination with the English language, especially clear, accessible language. It is for anyone and everyone—writers, would-be writers, and grammar geeks. It will focus on participants’ questions about language and the instructor’s experiences as both a writing teacher and an academic and popular writer. We’ll explore grammatical choices that illuminate meaning—for example, revising a dangling participle to make sense (and what is a dangling participle anyway?), using the Oxford comma to avoid confusion, and sorting out “they” plural and “they” singular. Dry, you ask? No, we’ll have fun! 

The Charlotte region (Mecklenburg and surrounding counties) is one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. Using the instructor’s personal experience from working directly with regional city, town, and county governments – along with information from the archives of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute – we’ll explore the history of the region. We will examine Charlotte’s explosive growth and the issues stemming from that growth: jobs, housing, crime, education, and transportation. We’ll also look at historical patterns in the surrounding counties and the way outlying areas connect to Charlotte. As tourism plays a major role in the region’s economy, we’ll discuss what there is to see and do in the metropolis.

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

This course will explore the history, concepts, and value of positive psychology in everyday life. It will be based primarily on the work of the psychologist Martin Seligman, whose research examines the nature of true happiness. In the first part of the course, each participant will complete the Values in Action questionnaire. This resource has been described as the most significant current tool for identifying one’s personal character strengths and virtues. In the remaining sessions, we will explore how frequently calling upon these “signature strengths” in all areas of life can create natural buffers against misfortune and negativity. Ultimately, positive psychology’s goal is to help people achieve new and sustainable levels of authentic happiness, including contentment, gratification, and meaning.

Paul Celan, the most important German-language poet since Rilke, had an intense intellectual, artistic, and personal relationship with Ingeborg Bachmann, widely regarded as one of the greatest German-language writers of the 20th century. Together they provide a window into the poetics, as well as the politics, of literature after the Nazis and after Auschwitz. Bachmann, whose father was a Nazi party member in Austria, and Celan, whose parents were murdered in the camps in Transnistria, created some of the very best postwar German literature, winning major literary prizes in the 1950s and 1960s. Their work is canonical today. In this seminar we will study, in translation, their pathbreaking poetry and their precise prose, their epistolary bond, and the politics of their poetics. 

This course runs parallel with the instructor’s Davidson College seminar. The two groups of students will meet once or twice early in the semester, and again at the end of the semester for a literary soirée, where the college students will present their work.

While the optional and background readings for this course are substantial (sometimes a novel or several secondary texts, up to 200 pages for some class meetings), each meeting will focus on much less, just two or three poems or shorter texts. The basic reading to be ready for each class should require no more than a couple of hours.

Burt Bacharach was one of the most successful songwriters of the 1960s, with 73 songs in the Top 40. Far from being formulaic, Bacharach’s songs are tremendously varied, with unexpected elements that are rarely seen in pop music. We’ll take a stroll down memory lane, and in doing so, we’ll hear the many ways Burt Bacharach used his composer’s toolkit to give special life to the songs we know and love. No musical background is necessary to enjoy this course.

This course is designed to help you confidently navigate the digital world by teaching essential skills in computer and mobile security. Focusing on practical, easy-to-follow steps, the course covers the basics of protecting personal information on Windows PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. Topics include recognizing scams, creating strong passwords, using secure networks, and keeping devices safe from viruses and hackers. No prior technical expertise is required – just a willingness to learn and stay safe online!

The first two sessions cover basics applicable to any system. Students then choose to attend Week 3 (November 13) if they use an IOS/MAC system or Week 4 (November 20) if they use an Android/Windows system. Students wishing to attend both Weeks 3 and 4 are welcome to do so.

More than 40 million people in the Desert Southwest depend on the Colorado River for their drinking water and food stuffs – in effect, their very survival. The course will explain 

• How the once wild river was converted into, essentially, a utility pipe for the Western Sunbelt

• How the river was overallocated among the Western states in a headlong pursuit of growth, with no appreciation for the environmental damage done

• How the emerging environmental movement and assertion of tribal water rights changed things

• How climate change has created a crisis for the river and the inhabitants who rely on it

• What the future holds for the West.

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

The US defense budget is likely to top one trillion dollars (that’s $1,000,000,000,000) this year. This course will give an overview of what we as taxpayers are buying and how the defense budget is built. We will explore the current budget relative to historical spending and relative to spending by other countries. We will break spending down into three major categories: (1) People: military personnel, civilians, and their compensation, (2) Places: bases, housing, repair depots, hospitals, and more, and (3) Things: the development and acquisition of ships, aircraft, weapons systems, etc. The final class will consider options for reducing spending – past ideas and future possibilities.

This course is primarily lecture.

Does globalization help world trade by making it cheaper, faster, better, safer? What is the historical context for globalization and world trade, including its benefits and costs? How have the pandemic, geopolitics, demographics, economics, tariffs, protectionism, and supply chain issues disrupted and changed globalization? What is the future of globalization – is it the end of the world as we know it or has a new era begun? What are the geopolitics of China vs. the West (and the US)? We will explore these issues through lectures and some group discussion.

Socioecology is a field of biology that examines the social behavior of animals as evolutionary adaptations to their environment. The instructor will review concepts of socioecology using an archive of her photographs of some of Africa’s most charismatic mammals. She has been taking Davidson College students to Africa since 2000 and has a rich portfolio of photographs illustrating a variety of species and their social behavior. Using  her perspective as both scientist and photographer, the instructor will convey her love for animals and what they can teach us about our own behavior. 

This course is a series of linked, student-chosen investigations into the art, science, and business of fragrance. Among the possible topics are the insights about scent offered by literature, religion, chemistry, biology, psychology, history, and marketing. Our goal is to develop a vocabulary that helps us understand the marvelously evocative and behavior-modifying aspects of this exceptionally elusive sense. Each class will conclude with attention to (1) the horticultural needs of one unusual, fragrant plant we can grow locally but usually don’t and/or (2) the history and chemistry behind the most iconic perfumes of the 20th century.

People with allergies to perfumes or essential oils should indicate this in the registration process.

Federico García Lorca was the most prominent member of Spain’s Generation of 1927. Known for his lyrical poetry and dramatic plays, his works caught the imagination and admiration of both the public and the critics. García Lorca, close friend of the artists Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, experimented with surrealism and other avant-garde techniques. In his tragically short life, García Lorca, a victim of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, explored both Andalusian gypsy culture and inner conflicts of the modern psyche. This course will focus on three of his most famous plays, which highlight his original use of metaphors and obsession with love, loss, and death.

Samuel Coleridge wrote that poetry is "the best words in the best order." With his idea in mind, class conversations will focus on selected published poems, material the instructor provides, and students’ own poems to help all participants find “the best words in the best order.” Whether you are an experienced poet or a novice, the class activities will enhance the development of your own writing through the lens of selected poets and class feedback. Poems will be from the work of W. H. Auden, Robert Frost, W. S. Merwin, John Balaban, Eleanor Wilner, Jamal May, Betty Adcock, Marilyn Nelson, Claudia Emerson, and others. Bring your poems to share with fellow poets – a tried-and-true method to find out what is working in your poems and what may need to be re-examined. Fellow writers are often the best and most careful readers.

This course will examine the economic and political challenges faced by African Americans, first as African slaves and then as US African Americans. The first session will trace the early arrival of slaves in the colonies, followed in session two by the institution of slavery as it evolved in America up to the Civil War. The third session will focus on the Civil War, Reconstruction, the pivotal 1876 election, and the ensuing world of Jim Crow. Session 4 will explore the developing economic and political challenges that emerged from 1900 to 1970. In Sessions 5 and 6, we will discuss the current economic and political challenges facing African Americans in the areas of education, health care, employment, housing, wealth creation, and lingering political challenges.

Together we will trace the evolution of scientific, cultural, philosophical, ethical, and religious influences on the development of medicine from prehistoric times to the present. Our exploration will touch on the arts, humanities, and science of healing practices. We will focus on the last two centuries to explain present-day medical achievements and the challenges in optimum health care delivery.

During the Great Depression millions lost their jobs, many governments slashed spending, and faith in democracy declined around the world. In Britain, most people sought to muddle through, but a discontented few became admirers of fascist methods and achievements. Others, including Winston Churchill, insisted that Nazi Germany posed a dire threat, a prediction that proved accurate during World War II, when Britain experienced intense bombing of its major cities, the near capture of most of its army, and the very real risk of Nazi occupation. In this course, we will discuss five motion pictures that explore the struggle between freedom and authoritarianism in Britain during the Nazi dictatorship and World War II. Students will watch these movies at home and discuss them in class.

Why do people migrate? What is the impact of immigration on the residents of the host country? What is the impact of emigration on the residents of the home country? How does migration affect the migrants themselves? Using basic economic theory and data, we will study these questions and look at how migration can affect incomes, growth, and inequality within and across countries.

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

This course will discuss the Federal Reserve's policies towards interest rates, the tools at its disposal, and how the Fed balances inflation and unemployment in the US economy. Interest rate changes are one of the risks in bond investing, and they will be analyzed along with credit and structure considerations.

Each year, more than half a million people travel to Thomas Jefferson’s mountaintop home and plantation, seeking a tour that celebrates the life and mind of the drafter of the Declaration of Independence. A lover of harmony and order, Jefferson would be pleased. But now, as then, the regal serenity of this site masks the disorder of life at Monticello: hierarchical systems ran counter to his stated ideals in the Declaration of Independence. Through our exploration of the lives of his three daughters at Monticello, we will treat broader questions of gender, race, and power in the early republic, and we will consider their continuing impact in our own day.

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

Our culture prizes and promotes individualism, yet we live deeply embedded in a web of relationships with all that exists. We are not separate beings, but connected in multiple ways with our fellow humans, with other animals and plants, and, indeed, with the whole living world. The quality of our lives depends upon the quality of our relationships. Recognizing this, what does it mean to live a good life? 

Maximizing the quality of our relationships (and our lives) is a recurrent theme throughout many religions, philosophies, and sciences. We will draw from various wisdom traditions (e.g., Zen Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Indigenous thought), psychology, biology, applied philosophy, political science, and more to explore pathways of thinking and acting that promise to improve the quality of those relationships in our daily living.  

Session 1. The Living World as a Deeply Connected Web of Relationships

Session 2: Care and Feeding of Myself in a Web of Relationships

Session 3: Care and Feeding of Our “Up Close and Personal” Relationships

Session 4: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World

Session 5: Constructive Politics in an Age of Deconstruction and Transition

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

Memoir is a literary genre that tells a story crafted from personal memories. The storytelling format makes the complexities of relationships more understandable and memorable than do academic texts. When authors describe how they learned to fight fairly with their spouse, to negotiate their relationship as each partner evolves, or to build trust after betrayal, readers absorb these lessons through engaging narratives. Memoirs are powerful because they show marriage in all its messy reality.

In this course, we will  

• Read marriage memoirs, discuss the readings, and look for shared truths

• Use a workshop format to examine how cultural, historical, personal growth, and social contexts shape marriages

• Discuss how marriage expectations reflect the time and situation of the people in the relationship

• Share our individual insights into what makes a successful marriage.

Please note that this course involves reading about 100 pages per week, writing responses to prompts, and voluntarily sharing your experiences and insights.

Ever realize that you have a priceless slice of the past to donate to the future? You do – it’s called the story of your life. In this course, we will tap our memories to chronicle the vivid lessons and life experiences that molded us into who we are. Funny, poignant, heroic, or embarrassing, our lives are a bundle of stories that deserve to be recorded either as a private exercise or as a gift to future family generations. This dynamic workshop will release the not-to-be forgotten tales of your life on earth.

November is Men’s Health month, aka Movember or “no shave November.” The Movember Foundation seeks to change the “face of men’s health” by encouraging men to know more about common health conditions; screening, treatment, and prevention of male-specific cancers; mental health disorders; and suicide. We will touch on these goals, as well as on contributing factors to male identity, dysfunction, and andropause (male menopause). Most of our discussion will focus on prostate enlargement (BPH) and prostate cancer, issues that most men will face over their lifetimes. The instructor – a physician, educator, researcher, and patient facilitator – will share his experiences and the latest medical advances. Participants will be encouraged to think and act holistically when confronted with such issues, to be their own best advocate, and to learn what to do when they need help. The course is open to all, regardless of gender. 

The naval campaigns of WWII differed greatly between the Atlantic and the Pacific. On the Atlantic front, the battles mostly targeted German U-Boats (submarines) and aircraft to keep a lifeline open between North America and Europe. In contrast, the Pacific naval war targeted mainly Japanese aircraft carriers and surface fleets and conducted amphibious operations against Japanese-held islands to gradually tighten the noose around Japan and its military. This course will consider, among other things, the major lessons learned in the war and the relevance of those WWII lessons for today’s national security policies. The course includes discussion of the movie Midway (1976 version), which students will watch outside of class time.

This course is primarily lecture but with some group discussion.

Students will explore the musical genre of Traditional Music through instructor lectures, discussions with performing artists, and attendance at two Traditional Music concerts at Davidson College. The first class, one week before the first concert, will introduce the genre and provide background on all the artists. A day or two before each concert, there will be a preparatory session in which students will learn more about the artists and their place within the genre. On the day of the concert, the class will meet for 45 minutes with the artists, who will give examples of what to expect in the upcoming performance. 

Part II of this course, which is offered in the spring, will feature two additional concerts. That course will open for registration December 1, 2025.

Course Introduction

Monday, September 15, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM

Concert 1 Background Lecture: An Introduction to A Capella Music

Monday, September 22, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM

Concert 1: Windborne

Tuesday, September 23, 4:00 PM – 4:45 PM meet-the-artists session and 7:30 PM concert

The 2025-2026 series opens with Windborne, a virtuoso a cappella vocal quartet. Many of their works are original compositions, while others are original adaptations of songs from two centuries of American vocal music. The quartet's repertoire illustrates their affinity for traditional folk music and their special love for the social activism of great American 20th-century songwriters. This is a cappella music at its finest. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gAsbH0XsGZk

Concert 2 Background Lecture: Klezmer Music and Its Influences

Thursday, November 6, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM

Concert 2: Zoe and Cloyd

Friday, November 7, 4:00 PM – 4:45 PM meet-the-artist session and 7:30 PM concert

It is probably safe to assume that there are no other musical duos who represent a synthesis of Old-time Music and Klezmer favorites - “klezgrass.” Natalya Zoe Weinstein comes from a long line of klezmer and jazz musicians, and John Cloyd Miller, the grandson of bluegrass fiddling legend Jim Shumate, comes from bluegrass royalty. They are a Davidson College favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4mRtw8AMdg

In the Federalist Papers, America’s Founders imagined a democratic republic with safeguards against the rise of demagogues who might stir up the “prejudices,” “intemperate passions,” and “fluctuations” of the popular will. By the late 19th century, however, new media and new strains of popular discourse began to undermine those safeguards, as various political movements and even the government itself resorted to deceptive and manipulative forms of persuasion.

In this course, we will explore the ethical and practical distinctions between persuasion – an essential tool of democratic governance – and propaganda in a series of historical case studies, beginning with the “Calamity Howlers” of the late 1890s and concluding with 9/11 and the War on Terror. Along the way, we’ll encounter figures such as Teddy Roosevelt, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and others. In the process, we’ll learn to recognize, analyze, and critique unethical, deceitful, and/or manipulative forms of communication with a view toward becoming more critical consumers in the “marketplace of ideas.”

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

From the end of World War II until 2017, the US led the world in building a rules-based, open international trading system, in part by negotiating the reduction of foreign barriers to American exports and investment in exchange for reciprocal commitments by the US. President Trump stopped this practice and has been raising tariffs on many foreign products, ostensibly to encourage reliance on US manufacturing. Regardless of who occupies the White House, what role do import tariffs play and how much do they matter? Most importantly, what impact is the current trade policy having on American life?   

In light of more recent events and information, this course updates the instructor’s Spring 2025 course. However, students do not need to have attended the spring version of this class in order to enjoy this course.

When you watch a movie, what is happening beyond intriguing narrative and social commentary? Psychological science has studied how we view the actor’s movement, and separately how camera angles and editing impact our interpretation of scenes. How is our attention captured and directed? How do we remember aspects of a scene and story in a movie; how does this differ from social conversation? How do we know something is scary? Does the soundtrack (music in particular) inform our interpretation of scenes? This is not a traditional film studies class, but instead it uses scenes from Hollywood movies as starting points to explore the science of cognitive psychology, including historical approaches to these topics.

For each topic, the instructor will present specific cognitive experiments in detail, but each class will include some group participation.

Note: this course stands quite separately from the instructor’s other course, Visual Arts and the Mind; there is no overlap. 

One chief route for accessing the lives of 19th-century enslaved persons in the US is the genre traditionally called the slave narrative. These first-person accounts were prepared for European-American audiences sympathetic to the abolitionist cause but generally unfamiliar with the exact moral and emotional dimensions of the lives of those held in bondage. We will study Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl as rhetorical documents, identifying their persuasive effects, speculating about their reception by their contemporary readers, and describing their documentary powers as classics of American letters.

This course will cover the 72-year-long effort to gain women the right to vote, from the 1848 Seneca Falls convention to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. We will look at several heroines who led the fight for suffrage and their efforts working through the states and the federal government. Also, importantly, we will gain an understanding of the intense opposition to women voting, which explains why the struggle was so difficult and so prolonged.

This course will be primarily lecture, but it will include some group participation.

What is the future of capitalism? You need to look no further than current headlines to realize that the world’s dominant economic system faces increased scrutiny. Conservative economist R. Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University once stated that even business school students are questioning the future of capitalism. This course begins with a critical examination of the origins, workings, and limitations of capitalism as a system for organizing economic activity and concludes with recommendations for reform. The first two meetings cover the functioning of markets and market failure. The next two meetings address the failings of capitalism in the areas of the social and natural environments. The final session focuses on whether capitalism should be saved and considers various proposals to do so. The course format will be a combination of lecture and class discussion. 

Explore five diverse, groundbreaking American engineering wonders of the first half of the 20th century. In the little-known history of developing these marvels and of the innovative genius behind them, there seemed no challenge that couldn’t be overcome by sheer imagination and brute strength. We will look at the construction of the Hoover Dam, the Overseas Railroad to Key West, the Pentagon, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the B-52 bomber. These mammoth creations defied conventions of their time and endure to this day. 

Noted Civil War historian Dr. James McPherson wrote, "The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness.  While the Revolution of 1775 to 1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 determined what kind of nation it would be."

This course will cover the military, political, constitutional, economic, diplomatic, and social aspects of the US Civil War from 1861 to 1865. North Carolina's role in the war will also be discussed.

We will read the most reprinted and most analyzed short stories from different parts of the world and discuss the ways those stories treat love, death, and art. Writers may include Gogol, Hawthorne, Gordimer, Poe, Joyce, Kafka, Borges, O’Connor, Nabokov, Ha-Jin, Murakami, Saunders, Lispector, Garcia Marquez, Allende, Keret, etc. 

After the class chooses some themes, the instructor will choose appropriate stories. The selections this fall will be different from those that were read in the spring, so both new and repeating students are welcome to enroll.