Midcoast Senior College brings classes to seniors interested in lifelong learning. The following new courses begin the week of Monday, April 8. Courses are six- to eight weeks long and are either in-person or on-line (Zoom). No grades, no exams, join MSC for learning for the fun of it! Registration for the following courses opens on March 18.

Christos Gianopolous will teach a new in-person course, Philosophy of Art: What is Beauty? Freud said beauty has no obvious use, but civilization could not do without it. Still, many philosophers are worried about beauty taking a back seat in a world driven by utility, efficiency, and power. They say that beauty is fundamental to our lives as rational beings.

Richard Neiman, MD will offer the in-person course, Germs 101: Ten Germs That Shook the World. Our recent experience with COVID-19 has graphically illustrated the devastating effect of infectious microbial disease on the entire world. This course will focus on ten others—leprosy, influenza, TB, plague, polio, smallpox, cholera, syphilis, malaria, AIDS—that have had major political, social, economic, and historical effects upon mankind. Class meets in person. 

Robert Bunselmeyer will teach an in-person course on the poet Edward Thomas. Edward Thomas (1878-1917), killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917, was known mainly as one of the leading British soldier-poets of the First World War. He is now also recognized for his extensive literary criticism, for his poems about the countryside and folklore of southern England, and especially for the vocabulary, dialogue, and narrative style of his poems. 

Steven Piker will take students through an in-person course, Religion and Violence.  Religion is often one part of cultural mixes from which violence arises. This course will examine the relationship between religion and violence focusing on the Crusades, and current and recent violence enacted by people of Islamic descent.

Doug Bennett will offer A Republic, If You Can Keep It, online. When asked to describe the government that had been created at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Two hundred and thirty-six years later, we still are trying to sustain the American republic. Sometimes we are more successful, sometimes less; we always argue about what it means. 

An in-person course, MSC Singers-Love in the Spring with Stu Gillespie, focuses on Anglo-European folk songs written about love, studying and perfecting four of these well-known folk songs that have been set in four-part harmony.

Flash Fiction! Expose Yourself to Writing Fun Fiction with Harry Hopcroft. Flash fiction is a specialized writing art that tells a whole story in 1,000 words or fewer. This course will examine a flash fiction technique each week, then read and critique student stories based on a prompt that will have been provided in the previous class. Class meets in person.

Joseph de Rivera will teach Using Tools to aid Peace, Justice and our Earth. To build peace, justice, and a sustainable Earth requires the use of different tools. The tools and how we might apply them in our lives and for our world is the focus of this in-person course.

Ross Crolius will offer Essential Opera: Opera Exotica. In this six-week in-person survey course, students will explore six different operas, each of which is set in an exotic location. By examining highlights from each piece, participants will discover how a composer’s musical style can be enhanced to reflect the cultural essence of each opera’s setting.

To register and find out more, visit 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 membership fee is valid from July 1 through June 30 of each calendar year. 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.