Wednesday University, a program of Seattle Arts & Lectures and the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities provides Puget Sound residents with an intellectually stimulating and fun way to continue their education in the arts and humanities. Each year, the Wednesday University offers three courses taught by distinguished professors at the University of Washington. These courses, which meet on Wednesday evenings in the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium, are open to anyone—from high school students to senior citizens. Past courses have included Early Modern Art, Greek Myth, Silent Film, and Race in the American West, among others, and are taught by professors at the University of Washington known for both their scholarship and their teaching ability.

AUTUMN 2005: Mapping the Dickens World
Taught by Professor Richard Dunn
7:30-9:00 p.m., Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
Wednesdays 10/5, 10/19, 11/2, 11/16, 11/30

The British nineteenth century witnessed unprecedented social change with the onslaught of rapid industrialization and urbanization. The effects of such massive shifts altered the visible character of wealth and poverty, the nature of law and work, and the quality of both personal ambition and family bonds. By interpreting the tumultuous Victorian scene in vivid stories and unforgettable characters, Charles Dickens gave indelible shape to this era, imprinting it with his own imagination and idiom. Through his fiction, Dickens's chronicles of his times have come to inhabit ours. This course will look at Dickens as a social commentator by examining familiar stories—from David Copperfield and Oliver Twist to Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol—powerful and enduring tales that have traveled from newspaper serials, to library and paperback editions, to stage and screen. We will consider Dickens's fictional takes on the law, work, and public spectacle; his treatment of private life and family obligations, honored and neglected among parents and children; and the moral imagination that ties his wide-ranging themes together.

Richard Dunn chairs the Department of English at the University of Washington, where he teaches Victorian literature. His publications and edited volumes have contributed new literary, critical, and visual resources for teaching and studying Victorian classics, especially Dickens's novels. His current research investigates the relationships between Victorian literary and visual representations and follows the adaptations of Victorian texts into other media over time.

WINTER 2006: When Theatre Mattered
Taught by Professor Barry Witham
7:30-9:00 p.m., Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
Wednesdays 1/11, 1/25, 2/8, 2/22, 3/8

What is America's role in the world? Should it intervene in the face of ruthless dictators, civil strife, and invasions abroad? Will unregulated markets float all boats on prosperous, rising tides, or will they encourage stock manipulations that devastate thousands? What about those who labor in America's industries? To what share of wealth or future security are they entitled, and should this be the government's business? These questions, pressing today, were raised in this country with special urgency between the two world wars. Before television made the medium the message, theatre offered the vital, creative place to dramatize problems, debate issues, and imagine alternative futures. Consequently, theatre between the wars mattered as a social force and forum in a way it has in almost no other period. This course will study how plays, playwrights, and performers—from Eugene O'Neill to Lillian Hellman, and Sidney Greenstreet to Montgomery Clift—entertained the nation's grave concerns, engaging and even mobilizing audiences from the established venues of Broadway to the living laboratories of the "Workers' Theaters."

Barry Witham is Professor of Drama and former Director of the University of Washington School of Drama. In 2003, he was honored by the American Theater and Drama Society with the Betty Jean Jones Award for "outstanding teaching in the American Theatre." His most recent book, The Federal Theatre Project: A Case Study, was selected as an "Outstanding Academic Title" by CHOICE, the journal of the American Libraries Association.

SPRING 2006: Five Italian Cities
Taught by Professor Claudio Mazzola
7:30-9:00 p.m., Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
Wednesdays 3/29, 4/12, 4/26, 5/10, 5/24

Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, Milan. The very names of these Italian cities conjure visions and stories the world over, even for those who have never walked their streets. Beneath the evocative images, their deeply layered histories have shaped distinctive regional identities, displayed in a gamut of dialects, cuisines, political beliefs, and sporting enthusiasms. Culture in these cities manifests itself in the highest human achievements and the unstudied rhythms of everyday life. From the art of Michelangelo to the rituals of a midday meal, these cities offer rich and varied feasts. This course will link the complex histories and contemporary cultures of the five fabled cities, exploring how Italians and foreigners have imagined each of them in art, literature, and cinema, and how Italians live in these legendary cities today.

Claudio Mazzola teaches in the Department of Italian Studies and the Cinema Studies Program at the University of Washington. He received his baccalaureate degree in English from the University of Milan, a degree in film studies from City University of Milan, and a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. An expert on contemporary Italian fiction and cinema, he has published numerous articles on these topics. He periodically leads the department's study abroad program at the Rome Center.

For information about previous courses in the Wednesday University Series, please visit our season archives.