A Look Ahead to Spring 2021

By Steve Clarey, Chair of the Curriculum Committee

We hope you have enjoyed the winter quarter online lectures and seminars that now features speakers from across the nation. We missed the annual migration of snowbirds to Osher here in San Diego this year due to the covid pandemic, but are pleased to welcome many new members to our Zoom program. Below is a preview of our Spring quarter, which will feature another wide and varied program of stimulating lectures.

Our Wednesday morning Spring Master Class I welcomes always popular UCSD History Professor Stanley Chodorow back to Osher for a multi-lecture series on the Jewish diaspora, both ancient and modern. Master Class II is an update from UCSD and Scripps Institution of Oceanography scholars on practical, market-driven approaches to “bending the curve” of global climate disruption.

Our multi-lecture Premier Classes this quarter offer a broad array of subjects: Did the Big Events of the Hebrew Bible Really Happen? presented by Jewish scholar Eran Veisben, PhD, from UC Davis; Five Five-Star Faulkner novels featuring the return of longtime Osher favorite Professor Michael Caldwell; the Industrialization of American Agriculture: Science, Technology, and Unintended Consequences, and feeding the world, with experts in their field from across the country; and a deep-dive into the lives and works of five iconic modern sculptors, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Richard Serra, and Dale Chihuly (glass) with speakers from the UK, Canada, New York, and Chicago.

Our lectures in Humanities, International Relations, Law and Society, Medicine, Science, and the Social Sciences feature a wide range of preeminent speakers. Notable this quarter are: Dean Peter Cowhey from the UCSD School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) lecturing on A New American Strategy for Technology Competition; GPS Professor Barbara Walter discussing her new book: Is American Headed for a Second Civil War?; UCSD Professor John Evans on The Ethics of the Human-Brain Organoids; San Diego Cinema Society’s Andy Friedenberg handicapping the 2021 Oscars; an update on Alzheimer’s research; the gas and geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean; Immunotherapy In the treatment of cancer; the geopolitics of semiconductors, and many others.

Our literature, WWII history, Memoirs, and French conversation seminars will continue to stimulate their loyal participants, and we will again be entertained by our dedicated Theater World performers and directors, Live Music Fridays, and a quarterly Poetry Café. Feel free to share your views with your colleagues on current events in our weekly moderated discussions in Inside Politics and Hot Topics.

If you have any recommendations for speakers or would like to join the volunteer curriculum committee, please send me an email: ssclarey62@gmail.com.

Steve Clarey

Chair, Curriculum Committee