Lifelong Learning

In the context of Isabelle Wilkerson's thesis in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, we will explore how the driving force of racism led to both the Holocaust and the oppression of African Americans in the 1930s. We will learn what the Nazi regime thought about American law with regard to citizenship, voting rights, interracial marriage, and immigration. We will discuss the historical connections between American race law and the infamous Nuremberg Laws.   Register here

The Golden Age of Art in Vienna:

Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka

Gustav Klimt dominated cultural life in the Austrian capital at the turn of the Twentieth Century. He and his compatriots in the Vienna Secession rode the crest of the wave of modernism that captured the European imagination. This series of four talks will tell the story of this Golden Age of Art in Vienna, first by examining Klimt’s extraordinary life through his ebullient landscapes, sensual drawings, and ravishing portraits. In Part 2 we will then look at Egon Schiele, Klimt’s protégé, who shocked the art world with his dazzling, intense, and expressive works. Our focus then will turn in Part 3 to Oskar Kokoschka, whose feverish paintings and bold graphic designs portrayed powerful psychological insights. Finally, in Part 4 we will discuss the important relationship Klimt, Schiele, and Kokoschka had with their many Jewish patrons and what happened to these collectors and to the works they owned during the Nazi era and beyond