Midcoast Senior College, bringing classes to seniors interested in lifelong learning, announces exciting new courses for its Fall Term II. Courses begin the week of Nov. 6 and are five- to eight-weeks long. There is a selection of in-person and online (Zoom) classes. No grades, no exams -- just learning for the fun of it!

Registration opens for members October 16, 2023 online at www.midcoastseniorcollege.org or call us at 207-725-4900.

To register for a course, you must be a current MSC member or a current member of another Maine senior college. The annual $35 non-refundable membership fee is valid from July 1 through June 30 of each calendar year. All courses are $60 per person. A $10 discount is given for two people in the same household taking an online Zoom class together. MSC offers confidential tuition waivers to its members from its scholarship fund. Please contact us if our fees are outside your budget. Send your tuition waiver request to info@midcoastseniorcollege.org and we will contact you. There are no forms to complete. Here are our offerings.

Frank Strasburger will offer Why Bad Things Happen to Good People: A Study of the Book of Job. Why isn’t life fair? What do we mean by justice? Do we have free will? These and other important questions will be explored in this course.

Join Mort Achter and Landmarks of the American Musical, 1866-1967. Mort will take you through the evolution of the American musical from the civil war to 1967 including how and why the theatrical genre originally came about. Also explore why why a particular show deserves “landmark” status.

John Haile will offer Moby Dick: A “Deep Dive.” This will be a discussion-based course for people who are already familiar with the novel and are interested in a thematic “deep dive” into some of the ways this remarkable book works. The course will focus on close readings of selected passages and look for connections.

Bill Hammond will offer Introduction to Big History, Part II. This is a continuing exploration of the rise of complexity in the Universe, from the Big Bang to the evolution of humans. This term the class will trace the emergence of Homo sapiens as other hominins become extinct. What are the futures awaiting humanity, the Earth, and the Universe?

William Faulkner’s “Go Down, Moses: The Destructive Power of Possession” will be offered by Michele Lettiere. This novel explores Faulkner’s response to possession- of people and of the land- through the lens of one family and its black and white descendants. Seven short stories comprise the novel and are set between 1859 and 1941 as Faulkner unravels myths of the American wilderness as a new Eden, the Southern states’ “Lost Cause” and the possibility of redemption after slavery.

When you think about climate change and the destruction of ecosystems, do you experience feelings of despair or helplessness? Then join Thomas G. White in his course The Journey from Climate Doom to Active Hope. Thomas will explore the ideas of scientists, social scientists and philosophers who have shown us how we could create a more hopeful story for ourselves and future generations.

Join Emma Wegner in The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins. Frances Perkins served as Secretary of labor under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945. She is widely recognized as a driving force behind the New Deal, most notably for the policies that created social Security, the forty-hour work week, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, workplace safety standards, and a ban on child labor.

Love to Sing? Join Stuart Gillespie and the MSC Singers: Folk Song Choral Arrangements for Christmas. Singers will explore and learn four folk song choral arrangements that celebrate the Christmas holiday. The choral arrangements include “I Saw Three Ships,” “I Wonder as I Wander,” and other famous songs of seasonal celebration. The course will culminate with a presentation of these pieces at The Chocolate Church’s “Sing! It’s Christmas.”

Homo Sapiens: Who Are We? What Are We? Find out with Steve Piker on an exploration of the history of our species and its evolution from non-human species. James C Scott’s work Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States will flesh out continuities, discontinuities and transitions drawn from human evolution and human prehistory, including what we are please to call “civilization” and “progress.” And our future?

Susan Welsh will present NATO-Russia War in Ukraine Was Predictable, Predicted- and Avoidable. U.S. foreign policy elite and mainstream media have supported a narrative and policies that dismiss over 30 years of evidence and expert warnings that NATO violation of Russia’s “Monroe Doctrine” in Ukraine would lead to war. Topics will include unkept promises, Russia’s “reddest of red lines,” a decade of civil war in the Ukraine and our political echo chamber. The world has changed. What comes next?

Join David Spurr for Venice: Literature, Art, Architecture. Venice has long held a special place in the western cultural imagination. The dreamlike city on the water was a republic for more than 1000 years. It was a great empire during the Middle Ages. It has been the home of some of the world’s finest artists and architects, and the inspiration of authors from Shakespeare to the present. The study of Venice is the study of European culture as it intersects with the rich influence of the East.

David Tarbet will offer Homer’s Illiad in the translation by Robert Fitzgerald. There is archaeological evidence that a war against the city of Troy