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Winter 2025 Sneak Peek

  • Course Registration will begin on Wednesday, December 4
  • Digital Winter 2025 Course Catalog coming soon - Stay Tuned!
  • Courses begin on Tuesday, January 7, and end on Friday, March 28
  • Click on the individual course links to view full course descriptions

Investigating matters such as conceptions of citizenship and other disagreements during the long journey from a collection of states to the United States and the making of the Constitution, we will discuss who these “Founders" were, the effort they made to form a union that would endure, and how their disagreements persist and pervade our national life even today because of various interpretations of the ambiguities in the Constitution.

How do immigrants reconcile the American dream that may have brought them to the U.S. with the many-faceted realities of living in the U.S.? Do they experience walls and/or bridges between cultures? We will examine these questions by reading and discussing seven finely crafted, engaging, and thought-provoking recent short stories by highly acclaimed, award-winning, and exceptionally skillful writers who came to the United States as refugees or immigrants from different parts of the world.

Join us to celebrate Elvis Presley’s 90th birthday (b. January 8, 1935)! In 1956, Elvis Presley became early rock’n’roll’s biggest superstar with the #1 hit “Heartbreak Hotel.” We’ll look at his seismic impact on popular music and youth culture, starting with his rise to stardom with his innovative fusion of country and blues into rockabilly in 1954 and concluding with his 1958 induction into the Army.

You may have thought English grammar was dull and dreary when you were in school. Few English speakers realize that the words “glamorous” and “grammar” come from the same root, meaning “mysterious or occult.” In this fascinating course, we will dispel many of the mysteries of English grammar and also consider how children learn the intricacies of English grammar without—as we shall see—much direct instruction. 

We’ll explore key works from SFMOMA’s permanent collection, works on loan, and four site-specific works commissioned by SFMOMA. This course will also include a brief history of the Museum from its first 1935 permanent home in the War Memorial Veterans Building to its newly expanded 10-story, Snohetta-designed addition, instantly making SFMOMA one of the country's best collections of modern and contemporary art.

Civilization began with farmers. Then agriculture led us to invent cities; and cities led to the wheel, kings, priests, bureaucrats, taxes, writing, mathematics, and the military. Assyria handed civilization over to Babylon, who handed it back to Assyria, who handed it back to Babylon. We’ll meet Inanna / Ishtar (and the oldest profession), Marduk, Sargon, Gilgamesh (the oldest story), Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar (two of them), the first known author (a woman), and a (literally) star-studded cast of goddesses and gods, including table salt. And we’ll tell this story through images of maps, people, and beautiful, really ancient art. 

What do the Empire State Building, a Cartier necklace, a 1936 Bugatti convertible, and the musicals of Astaire & Rogers have in common? They all show the influence of Art Deco design, the distinct international visual style that defined the 1920s and 1930s. This course will explore Art Deco as an expression of modernism for its time. We will focus on artists and designers working in Europe and the U.S. to see the versatility of the style as it appeared in art and design made for both public and private use.

Populism is a philosophy and style whereby populist leaders speak in the language of egalitarianism, freedom, and liberty. Our course will be divided into five lectures on four “populist” presidents and the Gilded Age social movement that we most associate with the populist idea. The presidents are Jefferson, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Trump. The movement is the Farmers Alliance of the 1880s and 1890s.

Today, the United States is home to five million Indian-Americans, and the San Francisco Bay Area is home to the second-largest number of Indians after the New York area. From contributions to the tech industry and academia to the impact of Indians in other professional fields, from the rich entertainment industry spawned by local and visiting artists from India to the institutions that Indians have built to further both artistic and cultural endeavors, we will take a holistic and critical look at the evolution of the Indian community over the last five decades and its significance in American life.

In winter, we will explore the origins of the First World War and the first two years of hostilities, focusing on the political, economic, social, and military causes of the conflict before analyzing initial war planning and diplomatic arrangements, as well as the motivations of combatants, the experience of total war, and the social and economic ramifications of fighting a sustained conflict.   We will examine the final years, the conclusion of the war, and the influence and enduring legacies in the spring.

Progressive Rock (Prog Rock) emerged in the 1960s, blending classical music elements with rock, influenced by bands like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Characterized by lengthy songs, complex structures, and occasional orchestras, the genre often reflects counter-culture themes or tells fantastical stories. We'll explore the evolution of Prog Rock through iconic bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson, examining its roots, growth in Europe and America, and lasting impact on fans.

We will explore modern Irish history, from the 1798 rebellion and the Act of Union in 1801 to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the Troubles of the 1960s-90s. We will examine key events, conflicts, and transitions, focusing on integrating Irish and English cultures, Ireland's fight for independence, and the rise of constitutional nationalism. The course covers political, economic, social, and religious forces shaping modern Ireland.

Ever wonder how new music gets created, notated, performed, recorded, and disseminated? With the help of several living, working, and thriving composers, we'll take a deep dive into how this all works, and we’ll also take a look at how AI may affect these processes. Is being a composer a real job? Isn't there enough music written already? What about the old masters? Who paid Mozart and Bach?  In addition, there will be an opportunity to purchase discounted tickets to a San Jose Chamber Orchestra performance.

Women were the early carriers of blues music and certainly the first popularizers of it. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Dinah Washington, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Memphis Minnie, Ruth Brown, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Nina Simone, and Bonnie Raitt . . . each of these women used this ‘truth-telling’ art form to challenge how we think of women and to let us hear their frank and powerful voices.

Counting systems and symbols for numbers date back to antiquity, but where does arithmetic come from? Does it result from human perceptions of nature or from social interaction? And where did concepts like zero and negative numbers come from? This isn’t a course on how to do math but how to understand how math helps us interpret and interact with our world.  

What can Hollywood movies teach us about California History? Each session covers a period in our state’s history, discusses a film that presents this history, and looks at the power of movies to inform our historical memory. Looking at the historical facts about the era, we’ll compare them to history’s presentation in the film and discuss the historical climate of the era when the film was produced.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel combined angelic harmonies and timeless melodies with poetic, socially conscious lyrics to craft some of the biggest folk-rock hits ever. We’ll look at their rise from Everly Brothers-obsessed New York teenagers through the folk revival and on to classics with increasingly sophisticated electric rock arrangements and orchestration. We will also cover their eclectic use of gospel, Latin, and soundtrack influences as their career progressed and how Simon brought his songwriting smarts into a successful solo career in the early 1970s.

We will deconstruct the process of longform journalism, investigating the qualities that give magazine journalism its distinct nature. We’ll start with a thumbnail history of magazine journalism, look at the business itself, and explore the work of some journalists whose work has elevated the craft to what has been dubbed the literature of fact. We’ll probe the stories that lurk beneath the news radar and investigate the techniques–place, portraits, character development, voice–that make longform journalism sing.

Learn about hummingbird evolution and relationships to other bird families with many striking slides of these winged jewels.  Gain an understanding of their physical capabilities – survival at high altitudes, helicopter flight, and feathers that send signals. Discover where to go to see them.

The human brain is one of the most remarkable structures in nature and has evolved over several million years. We will review how the human brain has evolved and developed as we grow from a single cell to an organism with trillions of cells with over 80 billion neurons. We will also study this development's impact on normal human behavior and mental illness.

How to access the course recordings: the OLLI office will email the link to the recording 24-48 hours after the course session. The recording will be available for viewing for two weeks after it is published.