A Look Ahead to Winter 2021

By Steve Clarey, Chair of the Curriculum Committee

It has been a pleasure to welcome so many new members to Osher this fall. We especially welcome those from other states, who have joined for our live, but remote online program. A very special thanks to our loyal members who have renewed their annual memberships. We hope Osher has met your expectations.

Our winter quarter begins on January 11, 2021 and will again be completely online via Zoom. A virtual Open House and winter quarter preview will be held on Saturday, January 9h at 10:00 AM. Please invite your friends and family.

Osher at UC San Diego has gone national for our online winter 2021 program with scholars from across the country joining our many UCSD faculty and other local academic speakers. We have scheduled numerous multi-lecture series beginning with our two Wednesday morning Master Classes. Master Class I will be an astrophysics update on research in the search for exoplanets and extraterrestrial life. In Master Class II San Diego State University Professor of History John Putman returns to Osher to lecture on America in the Gilded Age from the end of the Civil War to the dawn of the twentieth century.

Other multi-lecture series are scheduled: Geology Professor Keith Meldahl will discuss the Geologic Evolution of the American West. Emeritus Professor of History Michael Francis from Oberlin College will lecture on India’s fascinating and complex history over the millennia.

A regular at Osher, art historian Cornelia Feye will present a series on female artists from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Professor Inessa Medzhibovskaya from The New School in New York, will discuss Leo Tolstoy in His and Our Time. Finally, in our multi-lecture series, we will continue from the fall our discussion by nationally-recognized presidential scholars of Underrated American Presidents of the Twentieth Century: Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.

Our regular 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: a discussion of Casablanca and Hitler’s Refugees and the Hollywood Screen featuring Professor Noah Isenberg from the University of Texas; Mme. Nadége Rolland from the National Bureau of Asian Research on the China Belt and Road Initiative; Professor Ariel Kleiman from USD Law School on Tax Expenditures: Spending Money Through the Tax Code; an update from Professor Jeanne Loring from Scripps Research on new discoveries in the use of stem cells; Astrophysics Professor Brian Keating exploring Was the Big Bang A Big Bang; Brett Wallach, President of Vision Robotics Corporation, on Robotics and the Future of Agriculture; and Professor Fiamma Straneo from Scripps Institution of Oceanography on Greenland’s Melting Ice Cap and Climate Change.

Osher’s small-classroom seminars in literature and history will again entertain and stimulate their loyal participants, and we will hear from some of our accomplished colleagues as Osher Presenters. The always-lively weekly discussions of current events will continue with Inside Politics and Hot Topics.

Three exciting Theater World performances, including a winter musical, and a variety of online virtual social events will help build our Osher community.

The highlights above are just a sample of the winter program your hard-working Curriculum Committee of volunteer Osher members has assembled. If you would like to volunteer to become a member of the Curriculum Committee, have speaker recommendations, or would like to be an Osher Presenter, please send me an email: ssclarey62@gmail.com.

Steve Clarey, Chair, Curriculum Committee