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How does your brain organize thought, memory, emotion, and behavior, and how does that organization change with experience? This course offers an accessible introduction to brain structure and function, followed by focused explorations of memory, learning, reward salience, stress, trauma, and mental health. We will connect neuroanatomy to everyday experiences, including forgetfulness, the formation of habits, motivation, and emotional regulation, highlighting both your brain’s vulnerabilities and its remarkable capacity for adaptation.

Justin Sipla, a neuroanatomist in the UI Carver College of Medicine, teaches extensively about the organization and function of the human brain in Iowa’s MD, PA, DPT, neuroscience PhD, and neurology and psychiatry residency programs. He has won multiple teaching awards, including the university’s prestigious President and Provost Award.

From centuries before Iowa became a territory to the present, local transportation can be measured by distinct eras. We will seek to better understand the history of Johnson County transportation from ancient trails and natural waterways through the development of steamboats, stagecoaches, railroads, automobiles, and airplanes. We’ll share historical accounts and anecdotes about steamboats on the Iowa River, stagecoach lines making Iowa City the state’s prime destination, passenger trains serving Iowa City for more than a century, early autos getting stuck in the mud, and the bustle surrounding the oldest U.S. airport west of the Mississippi still operating today.

INSTRUCTOR: Marty Boller is an Iowa City local who graduated from Iowa City High and the University of Iowa. He serves on the boards of the Johnson County Historical Society and Friends of Historical Preservation and oversees OurIowaHeritage.com, a popular website dedicated to Iowa City and Johnson County history.

Since its inception in 1967, the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa has hosted more than 1,500 writers from more than 150 countries. The program introduces talented poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and nonfiction writers to American culture, facilitates their participation in American university life, and provides them with time and a congenial setting for producing their own literary work. Students will meet eight writers in residence at the UI this fall. Each week, two writers will read and discuss their works, talk about the current state of literature in their home countries, and answer questions.

INSTRUCTORS: Two visiting writers will present their work at each session.

Hiding beneath a mostly white veneer is a rich religious diversity in Iowa communities. This course will investigate the historical impulses for religious dominance, causes of cooperation, and the ultimate flourishing of diversity. We’ll explore Native reverence for the land and its conflict with European lust for land; European and New England attempts to conquer Iowa for Congregationalism, Catholicism, and German Lutheranism; the missionary project; Catholicism’s evolving place in Iowa society; fundamentalism’s impacts; and reasons why the globalization of Iowans—both non-Christian and Christian—became a 21st-century microcosm for a new religious diversity.

INSTRUCTOR: Bill Douglas received an M.A. in history in 1975 from the University of Iowa. He is the author of The People Are Kind: A Religious History of Iowa as well as articles on Camp Dodge during World War I, the Lacona riot of 1946, advocates for toleration in 1930s Iowa, and more.

The 1977 release of the movie Star Wars spawned a multimedia mythology. While the films and their music are familiar to most, Star Wars lore also includes TV series, novels, animation features, comic books, podcasts, and video games. This multi-layered storyline evokes significant themes of religion, philosophy, politics, and ethics. Participants are encouraged to view episodes I through VI of the movie series. Beginning with an overview of the Star Wars galactic history, the course will explore the concept of the Force and its basis in Zen Buddhism, the parallels of Sith ideology to the work of Ayn Rand and Frederick Nietzsche, and the age-old theme of fall and redemption.

INSTRUCTOR: Jerry Harrington, a frequent Senior College instructor, was the marketing public relations manager for DuPont Pioneer in Johnston, Iowa. Since retirement he has been writing articles on Iowa history for Iowa History Journal and recently published Thunder from the Prairie: The Life of Harold E. Hughes.

This course will review research and case studies to provide information, frameworks, and assessment tools to conscientiously consider choices in various medical and end-of-life circumstances. We will engage in values clarification exercises, identify goals of care and how they can shift over time, and begin creating an end-of-life plan. Topics will include hospice, medical aid in dying, voluntary stopping of eating and drinking, and the role of death doulas at end of life. Time will be devoted to learning communication skills for sharing your values and decisions with others who need to know them. 

INSTRUCTOR: Mary McCall has studied aging around the world and holds a doctorate in human development and aging. She supports individuals, couples, and families in navigating late-life transitions, including retirement, housing and care, and end-of-life journeys. She is a certified advance care planning facilitator, certified life coach, and trained death doula. 

Dante’s Divine Comedy is powerful for life right here/right now. It is not an obsolete text but rather is alive and well, inviting readers to pursue the “examined life” in a spirit of “serious joy.” We will explore C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed as a pre–epic journey stretching exercise in preparation for joining Dante’s pilgrimage. Subsequent classes will introduce Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Before the first class, students will receive PDFs introducing the course, a link to the Comedy, recommended cantos for each class, and links and lyrics to selected songs. After each class, they will receive a PDF focusing on its themes. Plenty of journey-worthy resources!

INSTRUCTOR: Dan Christian has taught Dante to a broad range of reading pilgrims, including 37 years at the Gilman School in Baltimore. He recently created/edited a first-of-its-kind anthology containing writings from young authors inspired by Dante. In 2023, he released The Music of the Spheres Gone Acoustic about Dante and folk music. 

Reduced to scant fragments, the once dominant tallgrass prairie ecosystem has been all but eliminated in the state of Iowa. Through a broad exploration of the techniques and practices of prairie restoration science, students will learn how the fragmented native plant communities can heal the land and its people. Course material ranges from large-scale landscapes to the backyard habitat, covering biomes and ecosystems, basic botany, a history of the North American grassland, and milestones of nearly a century of prairie restoration efforts.

INSTRUCTOR: Mike Fallon has taught the field course Prairie Restoration at the University of Iowa for nearly a decade. In 2019, Fallon and a former student constructed the approximately eight-acre prairie restoration, the Ashton Prairie Living Laboratory, at the UI’s Ashton Cross Country Course. Fallon is the former owner of Native Landscaping, which specialized in the ecological restoration of degraded land. 

The 2024 election fundamentally altered the American political landscape, but the 2026 midterms will determine if those changes are permanent. This course examines the “midterm effect” in an era of extreme partisanship, focusing on how the current administration’s policies are reshaping voter coalitions and institutional norms. We will go beyond the headlines to discuss the House and Senate races that serve as a referendum on the nation’s direction. Join us for an interactive look at the shifting map, featuring guest experts and lively debate on the future of our democracy.

INSTRUCTOR: Ben Kieffer is the award-winning host of Iowa Public Radio’s daily talk show “River to River,” which he also helps produce. Kieffer previously worked in Europe, where he reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall and covered the Velvet Revolution in Prague. Kieffer is a Cedar Falls native and UI graduate.

Even though Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” is one of the most famous paintings in the world, other aspects of Wood’s art are less well known, even for Iowans. This class will go beyond “the couple with the pitchfork” to consider Wood’s contributions to American culture and his roles as mythmaker, humorist, art advocate, sophisticate, entrepreneur, and modernist. After an overview of Wood’s career, the course will focus on several specific issues that show his work to be more complicated, sophisticated, and interesting than you may have thought.

INSTRUCTOR: Joni Kinsey was professor of American art history at the University of Iowa from 1991 to 2024. She specializes in the history of landscape art, especially that of Thomas Moran, the famed artist of Yellowstone, but has also written on many other subjects, including American prairie imagery, popular prints, regionalism, and women artists in the United States.

Charles Dickens’ 1853 novel Bleak House reminds us the author aspired to be not only a novelist, but a journalist, social reformer, and what we’d call a social influencer. This “baggy monster” pits complex bureaucracies, a corrupt legal system, and social crises of public health and homelessness against warm hearts and families we choose. Two competing voices make a case for reform: the humble, compassionate, incisive young Esther Summerson and the all-knowing, morally outraged omniscient narrator. We, the readers, judge the outcome. Note: The instructor recommends an early start on the Penguin Classics Edition, edited by Nicola Bradbury. 

INSTRUCTOR: Teresa Mangum is professor emeritus in the UI Departments of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies and English. Her scholarly interests include British 19th-century novels, literature of late life, and cultural studies of human and animal relationships. She has taught past courses for Senior College focused on Great Expectations and Frankenstein.

The course will bring together a slate of experts to help students better understand the immigrant experience in Iowa and highlight practical ways to support and engage with immigrant communities. A demographics expert will model Iowa-specific immigration over time. Experts in immigration law and Homeland Security policies will discuss the changing environment of pathways and support for immigrants. Participants will hear directly from individuals who, along with their families, have lived the immigrant experience. The course goal is for participants to deepen their understanding of immigration and its impact on individuals, families, and communities.

INSTRUCTOR: Emily Sinnwell is a family practice and psychiatric nurse practitioner and a member of the University of Iowa College of Nursing faculty. She has worked extensively throughout Iowa and in Chiapas, Mexico, providing health care and advocacy for migrant workers and their families. She co-founded the Iowa City Catholic Worker and received the Iowa City Human Rights International Award for significant contributions to human rights.

Female musicians have influenced popular and rock music over the last century, from pioneering artists like Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday to mega music business moguls Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Through video and music clips, we will trace some of the trails blazed by female artists as they worked within an industry often reluctant to allow them in. Each session will focus on a different era of music and the well- and lesser-known women who defined it. Participants will be encouraged to think (and re-think) about their own memories and experiences with women in music. 

INSTRUCTOR: Laurie Haag was the program developer at the Women's Resource and Action Center for 35 years, retiring in 2025. She founded the Iowa Women’s Music Festival and Girls Rock! Iowa City. A working musician for most of her life, she currently performs with Dreamer and the Hoping Machine, Two-Bit Maniac, and Crone Age Crush. She was inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Music Association Hall of Fame in 2022.