"I have had the opportunity
to learn subjects I never had
the time to explore..."

Peer-led, peer-developed collaborative learning.

Now at five sites...
Brown University Continuing Education
Johnson & Wales University
The RISD Museum
Trinity Repertory Company
Rochambeau Public Library Branch 

BCLIR was established in 1984 as the Brown Community of Learning in Retirement, and has been an active educational model for lifelong learning for over two decades.   

In May of 2008, we became an independent non-profit organization, an umbrella for lifelong learning in our area.  Now in our second year, we have developed partnerships with multiple sites: Brown University Continuing Education, Johnson & Wales University, the RISD Museum, and Trinity Repertory Company.  We have retained the initials BCLIR, for it reflects our history, but it no longer has its original meaning.  

NOTE: To either register for or to coordinate a BCLIR course, you must be a BCLIR member.  If you have not joined as a BCLIR member for 2010-2011 (July 1 through June 30), you must include your $25 membership fee with your registration.

Learn.  Discover.  Enjoy.  This is BCLIR.

BCLIR Fall Courses

Registration now open.

Monday - AM

Sigmund Freud: His Life and Work
Coordinator: Bill Kulik

Sigmund Freud’s view of human nature not only revolutionized psychology, but also changed society. His ideas have so thoroughly permeated the modern mind that we no longer recognize him as the source of such concepts as the unconscious; the ego; and the expression of basic drives, like sexuality and aggression, in society’s art, work, illness, and crime. Other than the occasional use of his name to describe a “Freudian slip,” what do we know of him?

To use the words of his biographer, Peter Gay, we will enter the “world of Sigmund Freud: his family; his city; his long, fruitful, and embattled life.” We will place him in historical context in the European society that in his lifetime underwent the traumas of war and totalitarianism. Relying primarily on Gay’s biography, but introducing other material as needed, we hope to understand the man, his ideas, and the people he influenced.

Format: Participants, working alone or with other class members, will be asked to lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period.

Resources: Freud: A Life For Our Time by Peter Gay (1988)

Monday - PM

Slavery in American Literature:  Three Novels
Coordinator: Joseph Raben

This seminar will focus on the institution of slavery in America from the perspective of three literary works: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987). These books invite close reading, not only in order to appreciate them as works of art with unique writing styles, but also to examine the society for which the books were written. Stowe’s world included defenders of slavery as well as abolitionists like herself. Twain’s America was still fighting battles left over from the Civil War. And Morrison’s was adjusting to the changes brought about by the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s. All three novels were tremendously influential in their time.

Join us as we consider the ways in which literature reflects, responds to, and shapes its social environment.

Format: Participants, working alone or with other class members, will be asked to lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period.

Resources: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987)

Tuesday - AM

BCLIR at RISD Museum:  Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Coordinators: Bunny Fain, Roberta Segal, Peter Ciccariello

This will be BCLIR’s third presentation of “Visual Conversations” utilizing the collections of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. The Fall 2010 program will focus on the prints, drawings, and photographs comprising almost twenty thousand works of the Museum’s collections.

We will have an opportunity to spend at least three sessions with the curators in the Minskoff Study Center as well as the Siskind Center for Photography. The ten-week syllabus will include Old Master Prints, French and English watercolors, American drawings, as well as the superb collection of older and recent photographs.

Format: Presentations are suggested, but not required. Those who do not present are expected to actively participate by doing background research and/or collaborating with presenters.

Resources: Resources will be suggested by the coordinators.

Tuesday - PM

Architecture, Ambition and Americans:  A Social History of American Architecture
Coordinators: Carol Crowley, Betty Richards

This course is about extraordinary buildings and how they came to be built. It is about architecture as fine art that reflects, more than any other fine art, the taste and ambition of its society. And it is about Americans – the architects and their clients who collaborated to create these extraordinary buildings.

Using the book by Wayne Andrews as our guide, we will look at and discuss the architecture of colonial America, the Federal period, the Romantic Era, the Age of Elegance, the era of the skyscraper, modern times, and the postmodern period.

Take this course and never again look at architecture — or not look at it — in the same way you have in the past.

Format: Participants, working alone or with other class members, will be asked to lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period. We will plan at least one field trip.

Resources: Architecture, Ambition, and Americans by Wayne Andrews (this book is out of print, but copies are available from on-line used booksellers).

Wednesday - AM

Eyes on the Skies:  Astronomy For Us All
Coordinators: Barbara Nicholson, Louise Moss

Four hundred years ago Galileo put together the first complete astronomical telescope and used it to gather evidence that Earth revolves around the sun. His 1610 book Starry Messenger contains beautiful drawings of his observations. Fast forward to today when the Hubble telescope shows us astonishing images, as it has been for the past twenty years. And the future? The technology exists for instruments that will be 1000 times as sensitive as the Hubble! What will they show us?

You don’t have to be a scientist to gaze with wonder at the stars and planets. Rhode Island has one of the least light-polluted skies in the eastern United States. It also has several good observatories, such as the Frosty Dew Observatory in Charlestown and the Ladd Observatory at Brown University; the Roger Williams Park Museum has a planetarium. We have many resources close to home to assist us.

Join us as we celebrate the beauty beyond planet Earth.

Format: Participants, working alone or with other class members, will be asked to lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period.

Resources: Print and on-line resources will be suggested by the coordinators.

Wednesday - PM

Reading and Understanding Poetry
Coordinators: Dick Bidwell, Luz Bravo-Gleicher, Christine Rose

 CLASS FILLED

If you have not read poetry recently, you may be surprised to discover that age and experience have broadened your appreciation of how poets help us to see the world in a different light.

We will continue to explore short and longer works from the modern era as well as from previous centuries. Group members read poems aloud with attention to how the language serves to heighten meaning. Inexperienced readers of poetry are invited to join the group, along with those already familiar with its pleasures.

Format: Two class members selected on a rotating basis will be asked to present and discuss poems of their choice at each session.

Resources: We suggest that all members purchase the anthology Staying Alive: Real poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley; participants are welcome to introduce poetry from other sources as well.

*The library offers its space to BCLIR free of charge and does not permit us to require a fee. However, BCLIR will make a donation to the Rochambeau Library in appreciation for hosting its poetry group.

Wednesday - PM

Haiti:  A Country of Contradictions
Coordinators: Carol Gjelsvik, Don Harper

 CLASS FILLED

The recent earthquake and its aftermath focused the world’s attention on the Republic of Haiti. But few of us really know about the rich history and culture of this small island nation and its proud people. Haiti was the first independent nation in the Caribbean and the first black-led republic in the world. It has a long tradition of art, literature, and music. The religious beliefs, a combination of Catholicism and African rites, are fascinating. But it is also the poorest nation in the Americas.

Participants in this course will study the culture of Haiti — art, music, food, religion and voodoo, language, folktales, and modern literature. We will also study Haiti’s history, including the indigenous Taino people; the slave rebellion of 1804; and the influence of France and the United States. We will seek to understand how US policies have hurt this once-rich nation. And, finally, we will contemplate the future of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. Will it emerge a stronger or weaker country?

Format: A flexible format is planned. Participants, working alone or with other class members, may choose to make a presentation, be part of a panel, lead a discussion, bring in a speaker, read a folktale or play, or discuss music.

Resources: Print and on-line resources will be suggested by the coordinators. A book by Edwidge Danticat or another Haitian writer is recommended for summer reading.

Thursday - AM

BCLIR at Trinity:  Theatre Conversations
Coordinators: Jim Doak, Frankie Raben

 CLASS FILLED

Trinity Repertory Theatre will produce three plays to start their 2010-2011 season that will be the focus of our course. They are “Camelot” by Lerner & Lowe, “Absurd Person Singular” by Alan Ayckbourn, and “It’s a Wonderful Life” by Joe Landry (based on Frank Capra’s film). We will delve into the psychology of the characters and the societal context of each play, using close textual analysis and available background information. We will contrast the meaning we derive from this process of examination with the meaning communicated by a live performance.

Frequent guest appearances by Artistic Director Curt Columbus and the Trinity team of actors, directors, production staff, and designers will help us understand the processes that result in the product we see on the stage. Under their expert guidance we will learn how this professional community comes together with a unified interpretation of each play’s meaning and translates that into the final product.

Format: Guest appearances by the Trinity staff will be supplemented by material presented by seminar participants on a voluntary basis. There will be much discussion.

Resources: Participants in the class will be expected to read the three plays (see above). The coordinators will also select relevant readings to enhance the understanding of the plays.

Thursday - PM

"As Long as the Grass Shall Grow..."  Native North Americans and the Republic
Coordinators: Elsa and Jerry Grieder

 CLASS FILLED

“As long as the grass shall grow…” This was the phrase written into many of the treaties signed over the course of the 19th century between the U.S. government and one or another of the Indian peoples who called the American West their home. It was meant to signify the everlastingness of agreements thus sanctified. But the grass withered, as the plow turned it under and the great cattle herds grazed it down. And so the treaties also withered.

This seminar will explore the evolution of the relationship between the Native American tribes who inhabited the vast interior of the North American continent and the European settlers and immigrants who moved steadily deeper into these ancestral lands. One of the many questions we will bear in mind is whether or not this is a subject that must be studied as a history of victimization, or whether a deeper understanding will perhaps yield a more nuanced appreciation of the dynamics of this confrontation.

We will focus on the history of the last 200+ years, from the founding of the new Republic to the late 20th century. We will also consider the place of American Indians in the increasingly multiethnic culture of our own times.

Format: Individual or collaborative study projects/presentations are not required, but they are welcome if they reinforce the weekly topics under discussion.

Resources: There will be a text, perhaps Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee or Jake Page’s In the Hands of the Great Spirit, as well as additional recommended reading.

Friday - AM

Baroque Music
Coordinators: Fred Rabin, Carol Robinson

The course will survey music of the Baroque Period in Europe — i.e. from about 1600 to about 1760. Baroque music developed in two genres: 1) in northern Germany and the Netherlands, where organ and voice were the major elements; and 2) in Italy where the sonata and concerto were developed, using mostly string instruments. By the end of the 17th century, Italian influences were spreading northward and German influences were spreading southward. We will look at the early “northern” composers such as Dietrich Buxtehude, and the “southern” composers such as Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli. A major portion of the course will be devoted to the composers who intermingled the two threads: e.g., J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. We will also look at opera, which originated in Italy, and oratorio, which reached its highest point in England. We seek music lovers, but not necessarily those who already have some knowledge of baroque music (although, of course, such people will be most welcome). Selected pieces of music will be played in class each week; presentations will focus on the musical composition and performance, the settings of the particular compositions (church, concert hall, etc.), the effect of the Reformation on musical development, etc.

Format: Participants will be asked to present the musical selections and lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period. Class members who are hesitant to make a presentation on the actual music will have the option to focus on historical background.

Resources: Print and on-line resources will be suggested by the coordinators.

Friday - AM

The Age of Enlightenment
Coordinators: Elaine MacLean, Joan Ramos

Why do we in the West think as we do? What in our intellectual history has formed the basis of our belief that reason is the ultimate decision-making authority? What about our notion of the supremacy of the individual over the group and the political freedom of the individual? Why do we believe so strongly in human progress and the ultimate perfectibility of man?

In this course we will investigate The Enlightenment, the secular revolution in thinking that took place in 18th-century Europe and America, and which continues to influence our thinking to this day. Class participants will have the opportunity to investigate the social, political, and religious trends of the era as well as focus on the many profound thinkers of this revolution, including the fascinating women who kept the movement afoot at their salons.

Format: Participants, working alone or with other class members, will be asked to lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period.

Resources: Print and on-line resources will be suggested by the coordinators.

Friday - PM

Extraordinary People, Critical Issues:  A Documentary Film Series
Coordinators: Bill Deveney, Sandra Gandsman, Bev Rosen

There has been amazing growth in documentary filmmaking. Inexpensive video cameras and editing equipment have fueled this new wave of truth-tellers, bringing the tools of the craft within the reach of amateurs, independent journalists, and filmmakers on a budget. Documentary filmmakers are often inspired by the work of legendary directors, such as Albert Maysles, Errol Morris, and Ken Burns; but many others follow their own passions and blaze new trails.

Let’s discover this exciting world of documentary film together. Join us to meet extraordinary people — heroes, oddballs, and villains — as they appear in various documentary genres, and explore critical issues in the US and beyond. Our discussions will delve deeply into the subjects, forms of expression, and the filmmaker’s point of view and unique style.  Guest speakers from the Rhode Island film community will enrich our understanding of the role of documentary films in a free society.

Format: Each week the class will view a film together and follow with a discussion led by class members who have volunteered to study the filmmaker or related topics. All class participants are encouraged to do research and to share their insights. Formal presentations are not required.

Resources: The coordinators will suggest print and on-line resources to enhance the understanding of the films.

Friday - PM

The Media and Society
Coordinators: Barbara Dickinson, Tony Allen

Democracy depends on an informed citizenry. How does the public retain access to unbiased, accurate information upon which to base their opinions and votes?

The traditional means of communication with the public — print, radio, and television — have been conducted by professional reporters, editors, and publishers, who are governed by the standards and ethics of their field. Good reporting has kept us informed about our country and the world. Journalists are constantly fighting for access to information the government would prefer that the public not see. Investigative reporting has uncovered scandals and crimes. All of this has been for the betterment of society.

As the “new media” — Internet, blogs, etc. — displaces the old, there will be some major challenges. Who will confirm information? How will the public distinguish fact from opinion? Where will information be archived for future reference? Does the new media increase the risk of “cyber-terrorism”? Will the new media increase or decrease public literacy and knowledge about current events?

Join us as we contemplate the past, present, and future of the American media industry and the implications for society.

Format: Participants, working alone or with other class members, will be asked to lead the discussion in one class during the ten-week period.

Resources: Print and on-line resources will be suggested by the coordinators.

Click for Registration Form and Registration Policies and Procedures (PDF)

BCLIR Fall Latchkey Courses

BCLIR is offering mini courses in the 3:30 to 5 pm time slot in our room at Brown.  Membership in BCLIR is required to attend.  The four sessions are $20.

You may sign up by e-mail to: bclir@yahoo.com, with the course title in the subject line.  Then send your check to: BCLIR, PO Box 603126, Providence, RI 02906.

Or, you may bring your check to Convocation on September 15.

Beginner's Bridge -  CLASS FILLED
With Norbert Fessel
4 weeks
Thursday afternoons in October (7, 14, 21, 28)
Class Limit 15

Introduction to PowerPoint
With Tom Rooney
4 weeks
Tuesday afternoons, October 5, 12, 26, November 2. (No class October 19)
Limited to 15 participants

This course will help the student to master the basic concept and commands of PowerPoint.       

1. What is PowerPoint? — what does it strive to do?
2. What PowerPoint is not — some common pitfalls to avoid.
3. The basics of putting a presentation together — what to do — what not  to do.
4. More advanced commands — animation of text, additional media —     additional tools for emphasis.

The last week is open-ended: we’ll cover requests for help on specific issues/questions will be discussed.  If you have a laptop, please bring it to class.  We will work on your specific project as part of the class.  Those who do not have a laptop (i.e., a desktop at home) — you are welcome to participate and take notes.

Health Insurance in the US:  the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
With Dave Gagnon
4 weeks
Monday afternoons, November 1, 8, 15, and 22
Limited to 15 participants

The course will take the approach of a seminar in exploring the evolution of health care insurance in the US from the 1930s to the present.  The class will explore the antecedents to the Health Care Affordability Act of 2010 and the impact that this health care reform will have on the delivery of healthcare in the near and distant future.

The seminar will require that participants read the material prior to the class so that the discussion involves all concerned.  Each seminar will begin with a short presentation on the subject matter to be covered that day followed by discussion.