THOUGHT AND CULTURE
FALL-II 2026
A LA CARTE
This is a series of lectures we have put together for this session. We hope the topics will
be of interest to you – you get to pick and choose what strikes your fancy!
1. Introduction to Mobile Devices – Wednesday, November 11th - 11:00 to 13:00
Atwater Library Auditorium HYBRID
In PERSON - $15.00
On ZOOM - $15.00
2. Clinique Mémoire – Healthy Ageing and Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease -,
Thursday, November 19th - 10:00 to 12:00 ZOOM ONLY
a. What is Alzheimer’s disease?
b. What are the risk and protective factors?
c. Why is early screening important?
d. What are the symptoms and prevention strategies?
What is the role of Clinique Mémoire and clinical research studies?
On ZOOM $15.00
3. Focusing: Listening to Ourselves in a New Way –
Wednesday, November 25th – 10:00 to 12:00
Lecturer: Patricia Manessy ZOOM ONLY
Have you ever felt something within you that you couldn’t quite put into words? A feeling, a knowing, or a sense that something inside you was waiting to be heard?
Developed by philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin, focusing invites us to slow down, turn our attention inward, and listen with kindness to the wisdom that lives in our bodies.
In this introductory lecture, we will discover how this simple yet profound practice can help us better understand ourselves and welcome what may be wanting to unfold within us.
On ZOOM $15
3. Digital Storage — Photo and File Management (Cloud Storage) –
Wednesday, December 9th -11:00 to 13:00 , Atwater Library Auditorium - HYBRID
In PERSON - $15.00
On ZOOM - $15.00
CONCERTOS AND ENSEMBLES Instructor: Roxanne Martel
This course will continue to explore the various kinds of genres featuring solo musicians, including the concerto, the concerto grosso and concertante works. The class will continue with concertos from the Romantic period onward. The focus will be on the kinds of genres showcasing talent on a variety of instruments, the kinds of ensembles featuring soloists, and the soloists themselves who achieve that level in
the music profession. There will be time spent exploring concertos for unusual instruments and ensembles from different musical traditions.
CREATIVE WRITING. Instructor: Harold Hoefle
Books still exist. People (real, actual people) still write them. So: why not write your own story? And more fun: make up as much as you want. This course is all about story-writing: short fiction. Each of you possesses special knowledge: events, experiences, memories. That’s your gold: your material.
In this course, the teacher will show you the ways a story can start; how plot works; how characters can be developed. Online links to writing-samples will be provided. Class time will include some writing-time; also, the student will do some at-home writing, hand in the work and receive comments from the teacher. Also in class: volunteers will read their work aloud; the rest of us will comment. Class goals: writerly improvement; support; laughter.
LITERATURE - Reading The Namesake: a Novel of Migration and Identity. Instructor: Lucienne Kroha
Jhumpa Lahiri's widely -acclaimed novel is a coming-of-age story in which a young man's struggle to find his place in American society is complicated by what he knows - and does not know- about his Indian parents. Over six sessions we will read this brilliant book and discover the pleasures of reading between the lines. It is available in both paperback and Kindle / Kobo edition.
MOVIE MATINEE Encore coordinator: Marie-Claire Zirpdji
It’s really fun to watch movies together! It’s certainly more fun than watching them alone at home and while we don’t have luxurious cushiony chairs like they do in the theatres, you are not sitting with strangers. Come enjoy our movie selection and bring a friend or make a new one!!
1) When in Venice - 2021 Romance, Drama, fun -1h17 min.
2) Sommersby – 2021 Historical, Psychological - 1h49min
3) Peace by Chocolate - 2022 Comedy / Drama - 1h38 min.
4) Mary Poppins - 2018 Musical - 2h11min
5) The French Lieutenant’s Woman - 1981 Drama/Romance - 2h04min
6) The Old Man and the Little Girl - 2022 Drama/International - 1hr40 min.- inspired
by Ernest Hemingway
THE HISTORY OF EARLY CANADA: NEW FRANCE PART 1 Instructor: Bruno Paul Stenson
New France lasted almost 230 years, yet it is usually given short shrift in histories of Canada. What a shame! The social history of this period is fascinating and it often shines an instructive light on life here today. Oh, and it's often really, really funny!
NOTE: The political and military histories that bored you in high school are NOT part of this course.
1) The Natural World. Minerals such as pre-cut diamonds in the ground. Plants such as the fern that was New France's second-largest export. And animals such as thebeaver... which was a type of fish!
2) The Native Peoples. They were called savages, but that wasn't an insult. They were living in their stone age, but technologically advanced Europeans could not have survived here without them.
3) Houses. The buildings, their construction, and the people who built and maintained them... including the men who had to be replaced when they became too fat for their jobs.
4) The Economy. Goods priced in beavers. Playing cards used as cash. A man who paid his house builder by building him a house. School fees paid with butter, a pig and a barrel of eels.
5) The Justice System. Guilty until proven innocent. Confessions extracted through torture. Trial before the local priest. Sentences including public whipping.
6) Communications. From the evolution of language to making a quill pen. Communication in a land where the printing press was forbidden.
THE SHIFTING WORLD ORDER AND A RE EXAMINATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION. Instructor: F.X. Charet
This series will explore the history of Western culture and its role in the emerging new
world order through the prism of a recent major study The Golden Thread: A History of
the Western Tradition by James Hankins and Allen Guelzo from its origins to the modern
world that has garnered a good deal of recent attention.