We are so pleased to be offering a series of new classes for ESI College Online’s July-August 2021 term, serving those age 60 and older. Registration is open; classes begin the week of July 12.

Course Listings

(click on the course titles for details)

Registration

Please Note

  • We use an online registration system named “Wufoo” that provides an easy-to-use form to select your classes.
  • Please sign up at least 48 hours in advance so we can be in touch with you about the class.
  • Some classes have limited enrollment; others have readings. 
  • Each person in your household must register separately. If you share the same email address, simply fill out a separate form for each person.
  • The registration system calculates the amount owed on a per person basis ($10 per session, per person).The total cost for your classes will be listed when you complete your registration. 
  • Some courses may require you to purchase books that will be available at the Vermont Book Shop at a discounted price.
  • After you submit your form, you will receive an automated email confirmation from “Elderly Services-ESI College <no-reply@wufoo.com>.”

Payment Options

  • You may pay by check. Please send it within a week of registration) to:
    Elderly Services-ESI College, P.O. Box 581, Middlebury, VT 05753 
  • Or, you may make a debit/credit card payment via PayPal, as you complete the online registration form. You do not need a PayPal account to use this feature.

Connecting Online

  • To participate you’ll need a computer, tablet, iPad, Chromebook, or smartphone with Zoom set up on it. A device with a webcam is preferable so that people can see you. 
  • We email you a Zoom link for each class in the morning of each day’s class.

Technical Support

  • We don’t want technology to be a barrier! We have technical support for every class session and assistance if needed for remote registration. 
  • Call us at 802.388.3983 or send an email to college@elderlyservices.org.

We look forward to seeing you online!

Dana Perzanoski
Geetha Wunnava
Jeff Rehbach
Anya Schwartz
Kristin Bolton

Course Listings, July-August 2021

Course: Women Sing the Blues
Instructor: Robert Wyatt
Date: Tuesday, July 13
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $10

Description: Although blues music was spun by slaves on southern plantations as an oral tradition, classic female blues emerged early in the 20th century as a mixture of traditional folk blues and urban theater music. Appearing onstage with pianists or small jazz combos, dazzling pioneers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters catapulted the vocal form onto the world stage. With new technologies in sound recording coupled with the advent of national radio broadcasts, the blues grew as one of the most popular forms of jazz. 

These women were pioneers in the record industry by being the first black voices recorded and also by spreading the 12-bar blues form throughout the country. Their schedules were grueling, staying on the road most of the time with tent shows in the summer and theatres during the winter. With the crash of Wall Street in 1929, the popularity of the blues singers declined. 

But a new generation surfaced as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Aretha Franklin picked up the baton. Spend the morning as American music specialist Robert Wyatt guides you from the roots of the blues singer into the modern day. The history is rich and the tradition is ongoing.

Instructor: Robert Wyatt is a Steinway Artist who has performed throughout the United States and internationally, gathering critical acclaim for sensitive and colorful solo and chamber music recitals. He delights audiences with a rare blend of pianistic savvy and engaging storytelling that makes each performance a creative event.

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Course: The Ramayana: Rama’s Journey Through the Arts
Instructor: Cynthia Packert
Dates: Wednesdays, July 14 & 21
Time: 1:30-2:45 p.m.
Cost: $20

Description: The Ramayana (“Journey of Rama”) is an ancient, yet still powerfully relevant, Hindu epic that narrates the story of Prince Rama, a divinely human avatar (descent) of Vishnu, the ruler of the universe. Rama’s ultimate destiny is to triumph over evil, but his victory is fraught with moral dilemmas about fate, loyalty, duty, gender relationships, and the conflict between good and evil. We will explore how this gorgeous epic has inspired countless artistic responses in India in a variety of different media: poetry, dance, theater, sculpture, painting, cinema and politics.

Instructor: With a Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard, Cynthia Packert is the Christian A. Johnson Professor in the History of Art and Architecture at Middlebury College. She teaches courses on all aspects of Asian and Islamic art, with a particular focus on India. Her current research focuses on new Hindu temples in India and the North American diaspora.

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Course: Environmental Poetry
Instructor: Dan Brayton
Date: Thursday, July 15
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $10

Description: How can art, specifically literary art, contribute to our imagination of environmental catastrophe? In this class, Dan Brayton will lead a discussion about “The Convergence of the Twain” by Thomas Hardy, and “The Berg: A Dream” by Herman Melville, two poems about a collision between a ship and an iceberg.

Instructor: Dan Brayton is a Professor of English and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. His book, Shakespeare’s Ocean: An Ecocritical Exploration, was published in 2012 by the University of Virginia Press. Brayton has served as Literature, Art and Music section editor of Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime Studies and has published numerous articles on literature and the marine environment.

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Course: Sex, Race & Class in Nineteenth-Century America – A book discussion of The Sea Captain’s Wife
Instructor: Amy Morsman
Dates: Tuesdays, July 20, 27 & August 3
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $30

Description:  Eunice Connolly was The Sea Captain’s Wife in this true story from 19th-century New England. But before she became Eunice Connolly, happy white spouse to a Black Bahamian sea captain, she was Eunice Stone, a wife and mother widowed by a man who died fighting for the Confederacy. And before that, she was Eunice Richardson, a young woman who sought to escape the poverty that had plagued her family in the mill towns of antebellum New England. Across three class meetings, we will discuss Martha Hodes’s insightful account of Eunice’s search for happiness across class and racial boundaries. In getting to know Eunice as best we can, we will encounter the major developments that impacted Americans in the mid-19th century, and we will also pause to imagine the culture of communication from that era and how it influenced this remarkable investigation into one ordinary woman’s life.  Think of this as your summer book club. Come ready to listen, to share, and to shape a rich conversation collaboratively.

Instructor: Amy Morsman teaches courses in American History at Middlebury College. Her research interests lie in the evolution of gender roles and race relations. Her first book, The Big House After Slavery: Virginia Plantation Families and Their Postbellum Domestic Experiment, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2010.

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Course: Hitler’s Rise to Power in Germany: Could it Happen Here?
Instructor: Russ Leng
Date: Thursday, July 29
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $10

Description: We will examine how Hitler rose to dictatorial power in Germany in the early 1930s. Then we will consider the broader issue of how a modern nation may permit a dictator to assume control, including a democracy like the United States.

Instructor: Russ Leng is the James Jermain Professor Emeritus at Middlebury, where he taught international politics for 40 years before retiring. Since retiring, Russ has taught courses to adults and undergraduates that blend political science with his love of diplomatic history. He has written extensively on international diplomacy, particularly crisis bargaining. He and his wife, Cilla, live in Middlebury.

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Course: China and Africa, Then and Now
Instructor: Don Wyatt
Dates: Tuesdays, August 10 & 17
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $20

Description: The documented history of contact between China and Africa spans at least a thousand years. However, from the first, the People’s Republic of China has regarded Africa as fertile ground for the extension of its socialist political agenda. Consequently, over several decades, China has developed and pursued strategic policies in its approach to Africa that greatly contrast with those maintained by the United States. Will China’s very different strategy ultimately advance Africa’s modernization or will it merely beset the continent with a host of fresh neocolonial problems?

 

Instructor: Don Wyatt has been a Middlebury College faculty member since 1986. He has served as a Vice President and Dean and is currently Director of the East Asian Studies Program. He has authored or co-authored several books on Chinese history.

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Course: To Bomb or Not to Bomb:  Fateful Choices in World War II
Instructor: Russ Leng
Date: Thursday, August 12
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $10

Course Description: We will examine three bombing decisions by the allied powers in World War II: to carpet-bomb the cities of Dresden and Tokyo, to use atomic bombs against Japan, and the decision to not bomb the Auschwitz death camp or the railroads leading to it. After examining the official explanations for each of these decisions, we will discuss the strategic and moral issues that they raised.

Instructor: Russ Leng is the James Jermain Professor Emeritus at Middlebury, where he taught international politics for 40 years before retiring. Since retiring, Russ has taught courses to adults and undergraduates that blend political science with his love of diplomatic history. He has written extensively on international diplomacy, particularly crisis bargaining. He and his wife, Cilla, live in Middlebury.

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Course: Some Enchanted Morning with Rodgers and Hammerstein
Instructor: Robert Wyatt
Date: Tuesday, August 24
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Cost: $10

Description: For 16 years, the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein stimulated and entertained audiences worldwide with their novel brand of musical play that wove book, music, lyrics and dance into a seamless tapestry of near-perfect theater art. Hit after hit flowed from their collective geniuses between Oklahoma! and Hammerstein’s death in 1960: Carousel, State Fair, South Pacific, The King and I, Cinderella, The Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music. Along the way, a few “misses” were tossed in to confirm their mortality. Yet, there was never a lapse in their desire to craft musical art which spoke of the goodness of humanity.

In this lively and engaging program, pianist and American music specialist Robert Wyatt celebrates the lives and works of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Through original cast recordings, film clips, interviews, correspondence, and other primary materials furnished by The Library of Congress and The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, learn about the lives of these two icons of the American musical, experience their great productions, and listen to their music which has kept the American public hopeful through wars, recessions, natural disasters, and political intrigue.

Instructor: Robert Wyatt is a Steinway Artist who has performed throughout the United States and internationally, gathering critical acclaim for sensitive and colorful solo and chamber music recitals. He delights audiences with a rare blend of pianistic savvy and engaging storytelling that makes each performance a creative event.

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