Food plays a pivotal role in connecting us as a species and distinguishing between cultures and groups. But why do we eat what we eat? In this unique hybrid course — part in-class and part online — you’ll explore the historical, ecological, socioeconomic, biological, political, and cultural environments impacting the human diet and, in turn, how the human diet plays a role in factors such as climate change. Through exposure to these concepts, you’ll become more aware, informed, and intentional about your role and participation in the food system.

Note: An additional online version of this course is also available to UC Berkeley alumni through the California Alumni Association.

This course will stream LIVE at the scheduled time and will NOT be recorded at the request of the faculty. Scroll down for the link, available in both PDF and word.doc. 

This course will examine a few major texts of two critically important British novelists and the ways in which their work influenced their successors. We’ll also briefly discuss how their personal experiences, social status, and climate of their time informed each of their writing, with special attention to issues of gender, creativity, and socioeconomics. Through their works, we’ll explore the ways in which they helped to not only document but also shape the idea of the modern woman.

Please allow yourself ample time to do the course reading, which is quite extensive! Woolf in particular requires the readerly leisure to follow her sentences; she is not an author who can be “crammed” or skimmed for plot all in one sitting, so you’ll enjoy and engage with the texts much more fully if you reserve plenty of time to read them more slowly and in increments.

The course’s primary focus will be on the three course novels listed below. For the shorter articles and stories we’ll read in Week Four, the texts will be posted on the OLLI course website. If at all possible, please have a copy of the text handy each time, as we will be examining the language of specific passages quite closely; you’ll get more out of the discussion if you have access to the complex language of the text rather than trying to recall just the general gist of it from memory.

This course will stream LIVE at the scheduled time and will NOT be recorded or available for viewing later. Zoom links are found in course materials. Scroll down for the link, available in both PDF and word.doc.  

Delve into the career and music of “The Boss,” Bruce Springsteen. Travel from the juke joints of the Jersey Shore to his discovery at Columbia studios; from the covers of Time and Newsweek to his three-year legal limbo; and from sold-out stadiums for Born in the USA to the acoustic elegance of Nebraska. At 70, Springsteen continues to be America’s greatest rocker and working-class hero, whose brilliant records and performances are the stuff of legend.

This course will stream LIVE at the scheduled time and will NOT be recorded or available for viewing later. Zoom links are found in course materials. Scroll down for the link, available in both PDF and word.doc.

This course covers the golden age of Motown 1960–72, concentrating on the people who established the label as the driving force behind American popular music in that period: Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Marvelettes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Tami Terrell, the Funk Brothers, Holland- Dozier-Holland, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. The course will include lectures, slide shows, CDs, video clips and live music. 

This course will stream LIVE at the scheduled time. Zoom links are found in course materials. Scroll down for the link, available in both PDF and word.doc. YouTube video links of the recording will post weekly on Fridays by 5:00pm, begining April 10. 

 It seems that each vital social and political issue of our times finds its way to our court, and Berkeley School of Law’s renowned professors are engaged in all of them. OLLI has the honor to present six professors in six weeks who will discuss some of the most critical legal issues being addressed by our courts and legislatures. From religion and the Supreme Court and building a just economy through labor-law reform, to cybersecurity, the death penalty, and the use of lethal force by American police. Join us for what will be intellectually invigorating deep dives into these fraught issues.

This course will stream LIVE at the scheduled time. Zoom links are found in course materials. Scroll down for the link, available in both PDF and word.doc. YouTube video links of the recording will post weekly on Fridays by 5:00pm, begining April 10. 

The Earth wasn’t always called a planet. Now Pluto is having problems. What defines a planet? How do they appear, live, and die? Planetary exploration started 50 years ago, exoplanets (around other stars) were first discovered 25 years ago (garnering the latest Nobel Prize), and it has been less than a decade since we have understood that most stars have planetary systems. Many of those turn out to be quite different from ours. Explore the progress we have made, how we have made it, and what we have learned about planets, ending with the question of whether there is life on other planets.