Summer Shorts are one-time livestreamed and recorded seminars open to OLLI @Berkeley members and non-members. Just $30 a Short. Shorts take place on Fridays in June, from 10–noon. Video recordings of Shorts will be shared with registrants after each event.
Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness
June 7
Robert McNally, speaker
John Muir is rightly lauded as the nature mystic who added wilderness to America’s vision of itself. That vision came at a cost, however: the dispossession of the tribal peoples whose homelands the national parks once were.
Beyoncé’s Revolutionary Shout-Outs: The Politics of Citation in Lemonade, Homecoming, and Renaissance
June 14
Sarita Cannon, speaker
Throughout her career, Beyoncé has celebrated the women who have shaped her growth, thus engaging in the Black feminist tradition of citation. We will explore this practice in three of her masterworks, pondering how might we think about her shout outs as an act of resistance that highlights the unrecognized work of Black women artists.
Conspiracy Theory: What It Is and Why It Matters
June 21
Tamim Ansary, speaker
This talk explores the phenomenon known as Conspiracy Theory in culture and history. Here, we’re not concerned with particular conspiracy theories; we’re looking at Conspiracy Theory as an archetypal structure around which particular stories form.
Across the Jordan
June 28
Marwan Hanania, speaker
Delivered from Jordan, this lecture offers a take on current realities in the Middle East as experienced both in daily life and in news media representations. What does the view from Jordan look like, and how does it differ from the view Americans are receiving?