One Day University: 5,000 Years of History

Why is history important? Quite simply, history is who we are. It helps us understand change, it inspires us, it teaches us warning signs. It explains why we are the way we are. It’s not just the past. History is the present.
With this in mind, we’re excited to share with you a full day of history presentations in a unique One Day U event.

Schedule

9:30 AM – 10:45 AM

Ancient Egypt: Drama, Spectacle, and Remarkable Characters

Kara Cooney / UCLA

Why is ancient Egypt so compelling to us today? Why do we care so much about the gold, the pyramids, the hieroglyphic script, the mummies, and the extraordinary leaders like Nefertiti, Ramses, and Hatshepsut, people who flourished so many thousands of years ago? As a UCLA Professor and Egyptologist, Kara Cooney has devoted over two decades of her life to the study of this ancient place, and will unravel why we care and what this unending fascination says about us.

This remarkable new class will examine how Egypt is utterly unique on this planet, a protected realm full of riches beyond reckoning and agricultural resources that allowed an unassailable divine kingship to develop. We will examine the spectacle of monumental statuary, of pyramids, of coffins made of hundreds of pounds of solid gold, and of granite and sandstone pillared halls – the supports of a totalitarian regime with a veritable God-King at the helm. We will ask why the ancient Egyptians preserved so many bodies, carefully embalming the wealthy and elite into mummies, while preserving so little of the private information from their minds. Ancient Egypt remains for us a place of mystery, fascination, and contradictions, but if we pierce the carefully woven veil before our eyes, we can also see the humanity of these extraordinary people.

11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Music as a Mirror of History: 300 Years in 60 Minutes

Robert Greenberg / UC Berkeley / SF Performances

This presentation examines Western music as an artistic phenomenon that mirrors the social, political, spiritual and economic realities of its time. As such, the ongoing changes in musical style evident in Western music during the last millennia are a function of large-scale societal change and are not due to any particular composer’s “creative muse.” Starting with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the intellectual and spiritual climate of the High Baroque (ca. 1720), this program will observe the changes wrought by Enlightenment society on the music of the Classical Era (ca. 1780) as manifested in the work of Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. This class will observe the impact of the Age of Revolution and Napoleon through a lens provided by the radical and experimental music of Ludwig van Beethoven (ca. 1810).Other topics to be explored include the nature and conception of “the composer”, Beethoven’s gastro-intestinal problems (not pretty, but relevant), architecture and landscape design in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the applicability of the concept of “music as a mirror” to American popular music of the 1950s and 1960s.

12:15 PM – 1:30 PM

Lunch Break 1 hour and 15 minute / Lunch Break

Students will have a 1 hour and 15 minute lunch break.

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM

WWII: Surprising Stories You Never Learned in History Class

Robert Watson / Lynn University

World War II is arguably the most tragic episode in human history. The six year war began in Europe but soon spread to all corners of the globe with countless men, women, and children affected by the struggle. Millions were killed on the battlefield, in the air, and on the sea. And as everyone knows, an estimated 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi’s in accordance with Hitler’s master plan to exterminate their entire race.

The chronology is well known, but during a war this complex and lengthy, there are many surprising and sometimes shocking incidents that occurred that are less well known – especially during the final chaotic days of the conflict. This lecture will explore the desperate and bizarre actions of the Nazis at the end of the war and the challenges confronting the allies in rescuing Holocaust prisoners, as well as the difficulties historians face in uncovering and making sense of such stories and the role of government in declassifying war documents.

3:00 PM – 4:15 PM

America’s New Era: The Rise of Radicalization and the Psychology of Terrorism

James Forest / University of Massachusetts Lowell

Terrorism is a complex, multifaceted human behavior that is influenced by a combination of personal grievances, ideas and surrounding contexts. An individual’s perceptions and beliefs about the world are at the core of most terrorist activity, and this leads to the study of radicalization – the ways in which a terrorist group influences people and convinces them to support their strategy and tactics. A person can become radicalized through a variety of dynamic interactions with a terrorist group’s ideology, which typically emphasizes a need for changes in policy, regime, territory, religion, and so forth—changes that they believe cannot be achieved without the use of violence.

This course will explore the research on how people are influenced and motivated toward committing (or supporting) acts of terrorism, and the contexts in which radicalization has been most likely. By the end of the course, you will better understand the spectrum of political and revolutionary ideologies that have fueled terrorism in recent decades, the reasons why terrorist ideologies resonate among certain communities or individuals, what psychology has found about personal attributes that contribute to terrorism, the relationship between terrorist radicalization and the media, and implications of this discussion for countering terrorist radicalization in our communities.











When: Sat., Mar. 25, 2017 at 9:30 am - 4:15 pm
Where: Symphony Space
2537 Broadway
212-864-1414
Price: $195
Buy tickets/get more info now
See other events in these categories:
Why is history important? Quite simply, history is who we are. It helps us understand change, it inspires us, it teaches us warning signs. It explains why we are the way we are. It’s not just the past. History is the present.
With this in mind, we’re excited to share with you a full day of history presentations in a unique One Day U event.

Schedule

9:30 AM – 10:45 AM

Ancient Egypt: Drama, Spectacle, and Remarkable Characters

Kara Cooney / UCLA

Why is ancient Egypt so compelling to us today? Why do we care so much about the gold, the pyramids, the hieroglyphic script, the mummies, and the extraordinary leaders like Nefertiti, Ramses, and Hatshepsut, people who flourished so many thousands of years ago? As a UCLA Professor and Egyptologist, Kara Cooney has devoted over two decades of her life to the study of this ancient place, and will unravel why we care and what this unending fascination says about us.

This remarkable new class will examine how Egypt is utterly unique on this planet, a protected realm full of riches beyond reckoning and agricultural resources that allowed an unassailable divine kingship to develop. We will examine the spectacle of monumental statuary, of pyramids, of coffins made of hundreds of pounds of solid gold, and of granite and sandstone pillared halls – the supports of a totalitarian regime with a veritable God-King at the helm. We will ask why the ancient Egyptians preserved so many bodies, carefully embalming the wealthy and elite into mummies, while preserving so little of the private information from their minds. Ancient Egypt remains for us a place of mystery, fascination, and contradictions, but if we pierce the carefully woven veil before our eyes, we can also see the humanity of these extraordinary people.

11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Music as a Mirror of History: 300 Years in 60 Minutes

Robert Greenberg / UC Berkeley / SF Performances

This presentation examines Western music as an artistic phenomenon that mirrors the social, political, spiritual and economic realities of its time. As such, the ongoing changes in musical style evident in Western music during the last millennia are a function of large-scale societal change and are not due to any particular composer’s “creative muse.” Starting with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the intellectual and spiritual climate of the High Baroque (ca. 1720), this program will observe the changes wrought by Enlightenment society on the music of the Classical Era (ca. 1780) as manifested in the work of Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. This class will observe the impact of the Age of Revolution and Napoleon through a lens provided by the radical and experimental music of Ludwig van Beethoven (ca. 1810).Other topics to be explored include the nature and conception of “the composer”, Beethoven’s gastro-intestinal problems (not pretty, but relevant), architecture and landscape design in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the applicability of the concept of “music as a mirror” to American popular music of the 1950s and 1960s.

12:15 PM – 1:30 PM

Lunch Break 1 hour and 15 minute / Lunch Break

Students will have a 1 hour and 15 minute lunch break.

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM

WWII: Surprising Stories You Never Learned in History Class

Robert Watson / Lynn University

World War II is arguably the most tragic episode in human history. The six year war began in Europe but soon spread to all corners of the globe with countless men, women, and children affected by the struggle. Millions were killed on the battlefield, in the air, and on the sea. And as everyone knows, an estimated 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi’s in accordance with Hitler’s master plan to exterminate their entire race.

The chronology is well known, but during a war this complex and lengthy, there are many surprising and sometimes shocking incidents that occurred that are less well known – especially during the final chaotic days of the conflict. This lecture will explore the desperate and bizarre actions of the Nazis at the end of the war and the challenges confronting the allies in rescuing Holocaust prisoners, as well as the difficulties historians face in uncovering and making sense of such stories and the role of government in declassifying war documents.

3:00 PM – 4:15 PM

America’s New Era: The Rise of Radicalization and the Psychology of Terrorism

James Forest / University of Massachusetts Lowell

Terrorism is a complex, multifaceted human behavior that is influenced by a combination of personal grievances, ideas and surrounding contexts. An individual’s perceptions and beliefs about the world are at the core of most terrorist activity, and this leads to the study of radicalization – the ways in which a terrorist group influences people and convinces them to support their strategy and tactics. A person can become radicalized through a variety of dynamic interactions with a terrorist group’s ideology, which typically emphasizes a need for changes in policy, regime, territory, religion, and so forth—changes that they believe cannot be achieved without the use of violence.

This course will explore the research on how people are influenced and motivated toward committing (or supporting) acts of terrorism, and the contexts in which radicalization has been most likely. By the end of the course, you will better understand the spectrum of political and revolutionary ideologies that have fueled terrorism in recent decades, the reasons why terrorist ideologies resonate among certain communities or individuals, what psychology has found about personal attributes that contribute to terrorism, the relationship between terrorist radicalization and the media, and implications of this discussion for countering terrorist radicalization in our communities.

Buy tickets/get more info now