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Humor exists all around us. It is most clearly observed in media, advertising, and entertainment. But humor is embedded in contexts where we don't expect to find it. Humor can lead to more effective teaching and accelerate discoveries in STEM fields. In this course, we will study humor broadly with a focus on how it promotes wellness, breaks down boundaries, and facilitates connections across people and cultures. At the heart of humor is the creative interweaving of context, narrative, and abrupt surprise. We will observe how comedic individuals use these elements to produce laughter in their audiences.

INSTRUCTOR: Raj Rajagopal is a University of Iowa professor emeritus of geography. His brainchild, the India Winterim program, won a 2016 Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education. For many years he has taught courses related to humor, problem solving, innovation, and creativity to university students, adult learners, and practicing professionals around the globe.

Registration for Course 1 is now closed.

In Anna Karenina, his most European novel, Tolstoy contemplates the lives of characters beset by passions and left at the mercy of unbridled will. At once boundlessly relatable and utterly infuriating, the novel asks a daunting question—What constitutes human happiness?—and leads us through the lives of Anna, Alexei, Dolly, Stiva, Kitty, and of course Konstantin Levin, who bears the philosophical wisdom of Tolstoy. The instructor will share how the author’s life is reflected in the novel and what she has learned on multiple visits to his estate, Yasnaya Polyana. Welcome to the seductive—and destructive—world of Anna Karenina. The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation is recommended.

INSTRUCTOR: Anna Barker teaches Russian literature and culture at the UI. A native speaker of Russian and Hungarian, she received a PhD in comparative literature from the UI in 2002 with a dissertation in translation studies. Her areas of interest include 19th-century Russian and European literature, Russian cultural history, and opera. Dr. Barker's online tutorials can be found at iowacityofliterature.org/anna-barker-classics.

Registration for Course 2 is now closed.

NOTE: Only the in-person classes are full. Zoom classes are still being offered.

Few years contained more shocks and upheavals in American history than 1968. Our nation was divided by the Vietnam War. There were anti-war protests, political assassinations, urban riots, and campus unrest—all cast against a divisive presidential election that seemed to shift its focus every month and that peaked with violent street clashes at the Democratic convention in Chicago. In addition to covering the multiple political stories of that year, this course will examine the cultural phenomena of 1968—movies, books, television programs, music, NASA space missions—that made this a unique time in the lives of Americans.

INSTRUCTOR: Jerry Harrington of Iowa City retired as marketing public relations manager for DuPont Pioneer in Johnston, Iowa. In retirement he has been writing articles for Iowa History Journal. His book Thunder from the Prairie: The Life of Harold E. Hughes will be published this fall. This will be his fifth course for Senior College.

Registration for Course 3 is now closed.

Since its inception in 1967, the International Writing Program (IWP) at the UI has hosted more than 1,500 writers from more than 150 countries. The program aims to introduce talented poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and nonfiction writers to American culture, to facilitate their participation in American university life, and to provide them with time and a congenial setting for producing their own literary work. This course offers the opportunity to 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 your questions.

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

Registration for Course 4 is now closed.

Say “theatre” and many Americans think “Broadway,” but what makes American theatre so distinctive is the vibrant regional movement that has brought high-level performances to countless cities across the country. This course will look at the national landscape through the lens of Riverside Theatre, for 42 years Iowa City’s only professional resident theatre. Each week the instructor will be joined by artists, theatre leaders, and others for conversations about how a not-for-profit theatre operates, including season planning, rehearsal processes, development of new plays, and challenges facing the industry.

INSTRUCTOR: Adam Knight is in his sixth season as Riverside Theatre’s producing artistic director. Before moving to Iowa, he spent 17 years in New York City working for such organizations as the Signature Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and League of Resident Theatres. Regional credits include work with the Folger Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Registration for Course 5 is now closed.

Beer was brewed and enjoyed for thousands of years before the current boom in craft breweries. We will study the history and process of making beer while we explore a number of beer styles from notable international breweries and from the extensive craft portfolio of Big Grove Brewery, which produces over 24,000 barrels of beer annually and has been awarded more than 12 international medals. Beer samples will be paired with classic food samples. Fee for this course will be $90.

INSTRUCTOR: Iowa City native Andy Joynt, director of brewing at Big Grove Brewery, has degrees in business administration and German language studies from Colorado State University. After brewing beer at home for 16 years, he began a professional brewing career at Big Grove in 2016. Along the way he became a Certified Cicerone and a Certified Specialist of Wine.

Registration for Course 6 is now closed.

Session 6 is now full. If you would like to be added to a waiting list for this course, email the course number, your name, and your phone number to Senior College at alumni.seniorcollege@foriowa.org or contact the UI Center for Advancement at 319-335-3305 or 800-648-6973.

This course will consider the environmental impact of Iowa's large-scale corn and soybean production and the ways that this production links to the concentration of livestock animals and the fuel ethanol industry. The costs: increasing soil erosion, the loss of wildlife habitat and recreation areas, foul air from animal waste, and heavily polluted waterways. The damage to Iowa’s soil, aquifers, surface waters, and air and the effects on human health will be examined. These issues will be considered within the historical context of the vast changes that have occurred in Iowa agriculture and the current context of climate change. 

INSTRUCTOR: Avid outdoorsman Chris Jones was most recently a research engineer with UI’s IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, focusing on monitoring water quality in agricultural landscapes. He holds a PhD in analytical chemistry. Previous work experience includes time at the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. His book The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality was published in May.

Registration for Course 7 is now closed.

We will provide a broad and interdisciplinary overview of evolutionary science as it relates to the origins of life on earth through the evolution of complex traits and organisms, including but not limited to humans. Topics may include the definition of evolution, what natural selection is (and what it isn’t), the origin of life, the evolution of disease, the evolution of humans, and the evolution of sexual reproduction.

INSTRUCTORS: Maurine Neiman, Andrew Forbes, and Drew Kitchen are all University of Iowa faculty members with expertise in evolutionary biology. Professors Neiman and Forbes, both in the Department of Biology, are specialists in evolutionary ecology and study evolution in nature. Professor Kitchen is in the Department of Anthropology and focuses on the evolution of disease-causing bacteria and viruses.

NOTE: No class on Thursday, October 26

In this course, we’ll use rare performance footage, photos, sound recordings, and insights from jazz and blues historians to survey the history and developments surrounding the influential musical style boogie-woogie. The weekly pairings will feature Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson and Jimmy Yancey, Hadda Brooks and Cripple Clarence Lofton, and Charles Edward “Cow Cow” Davenport and John Len Chatman (aka Memphis Slim). While the course is underway, the instructor will program music and commentary related to each week’s content on his radio show, “Jazz Corner of the World,” on KCCK 88.3 and 106.9 FM.

INSTRUCTOR: Craig Kessler has been a jazz radio producer and DJ for over 30 years—over 10,000 hours of jazz radio! He is also the owner and producer of the jazz record label Realtown! Records and has served on the board of directors of the Iowa City Jazz Festival. For many years, he owned the Iowa City store Real Records.

Long governed by propertied elites, cities in the 19th century were transformed by migration and industrialization. Massive strikes, epidemics, fouled streets, unsafe water, and decrepit housing tore apart their physical and social fabric, and the question of who should govern cities—and in whose interest—moved front and center. Working-class movements and middle-class reformers took up the challenge to make cities more humane, livable, and democratic. Drawing on stories of local activists and their social-democratic movements, this course will explore how cities became crucibles for municipal socialism and a new urban politics whose ideas continue to inspire those who fight for the right of cities to govern themselves.

INSTRUCTOR: Shelton Stromquist is UI professor emeritus of history and a lifelong social activist. He has published widely on American social and labor history; as a University of Iowa Global Scholar, he expanded his research outside of the United States. The result, recently published by Verso, is Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism.

The course will begin with an overview of the past (mostly negative) experience with research on humans, which has been largely responsible for the existing system of research regulations in the U.S. Next, we will discuss the current framework of oversight of human research. This will be followed by a detailed look at the process for developing and marketing drugs and devices in the U.S. Finally, we will deal with areas that the instructor perceives to be particularly challenging in the conduct and oversight of human research. 

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. J. Andrew Bertolatus has served as chair of UI’s Institutional Review Board since 2002. His clinical and research experience is focused on kidney transplantation and antirejection therapy. He received BA and MD degrees from Johns Hopkins University, completed a residency at the University of Kentucky, and trained in nephrology in the U.K. before coming to Iowa.

Each of the eight hour-long class sessions will closely examine a selection of artworks in one of the museum’s second-floor galleries, where the inaugural exhibition, Homecoming, is on view. Participants will explore how the artworks relate to the gallery’s organizing theme. Themes covered in the course include: Expansive Visions, Points of Departure, Reencounters, Action and Reaction, History Is Always Now, Fragments of the Canon, Centering on Cloth, and About Face. Optional homework assignments will include supplementary readings and visits to the Stanley to see the artworks in person.

INSTRUCTOR: Lauren Lessing, the director of the UI Stanley Museum of Art since 2018, holds a PhD in art history from Indiana University. The author of many publications about American art and material culture, she has worked at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Colby College Museum of Art.