THOUGHT AND CULTURE

SPRING 1 = 2025

ART HISTORY – THE TRAJECTORY OF MODERN ART Instructor: Lilian Elvir

Let's dive into the compelling history of modern art on a journey from academic art to
abstraction. These are participatory chats, where the attendees' experiences and comments are
encouraged to stimulate discussion.
 With Europe and the United States as our starting point, let's now look at our own
Canadian art. We all know the Group of Seven. But what about the other Canadian Art
movements? Let's explore the London Regionalist with Greg Cournoe, Painters Eleven with
Jack Bush and the Regina Five with Ronald Bloore.
We will also explore Women in Art and cast our eye outside the western world to Mexico,
Brazil, Ghana and Japan. Explore some of the women artists in Modern Art: Berthe Morisot,
Hilma af Klint, Tamara de Lempicka, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, Elaine de Kooning, Helen
Frankenthaler and Frida Kahlo. 

CLASSICAL COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC - A CLOSER LOOK - Composers P,Q,R AND MISC. Instructor: Roxanne Martel

This course is continuing with the series of classes on composers in alphabetical order.  It will
take a look at the music of classical composers in greater depth than previous sessions.  We
will explore a greater variety of music from well-known, and some lesser-known
composers.  Each composer has left a body of works and the plan is to go beyond the “popular”
repertoire and listen to a broader choice of works including symphonies, concertos, sonatas,
and chamber works.
Composers from Q, only one, Quantz, and R will be featured. Composers starting with R include
Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Reich, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rossini, to name a few.  There are many
composers who start with S, so the next session will be devoted to that list.  There may be a few
composers from previous lists who were passed over and who we could enjoy looking into.
There has been a new feature added to the class, which is to listen to a large work by a
prominent composer in its entirety, with a brief look at the structure, style and compositional
elements of that work in closer detail.

EXPO 67, A HISTORY, PART II (NEW AND EXPANDED COURSE). Instructor: Bruno Paul Stenson

In this course we conclude our look at Expo 67 by visiting every single pavilion on Île Notre-Dame, the
rides at La Ronde, exploring cinema, food and shows, and by looking at the memorabilia that
attracts collectors all these years later. Maybe not as much fun as actually going to Expo, but
really, really close.
1) Visiting Expo: Île Notre-Dame, Part 1. A visit to the first third of the pavilions on Île Notre-Dame,
including the one with a room still on display in a Montréal museum, the one with musical chairs, the
one that was shocking, and many more.
2) Visiting Expo: Île Notre-Dame, Part 2. A visit to the second third of the pavilions on Île Notre-Dame,
including the one that was open for only one month, and the one that was given away in a contest, a
look at boating on Expo's canals, and more.
3) Visiting Expo: Île Notre-Dame, Part 3. A visit to the last third of the pavilions on Île Notre-Dame,
including an incontinent imperial dog, a pavilion where they went out of their way to criticize Canada,
the most famous visitor to ride the Minirail, and more.
4) Expo Cinema. A look at movies at Expo, including the one that gave birth to IMAX, the one that won
an Oscar, the one that required audience participation, the one that had people fainting, and many
more.
5) Dinner and a Show. A look at the astonishing variety of food offered in pavilion restaurants and in
snack bars, and at the World Festival of Entertainment, the entertainment program that still holds the
record for the biggest ever staged.
6) Visiting Expo: La Ronde, the End, and Memories. We end our look at Expo 67 with the
amusement area, wigs and dentures, memorabilia and its collectors, and more.

THE EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY OF WOOL Instructor: Beverley Ann Lee

This six-week course looks at wool as a product and wool as an industry over the past 5000
years and how human involvement with wool shaped the western world, from domestic use to
international trade, banking, religion and politics.
 
1) This first presentation is a general overview of wool as a product and as an industry and how
it came to shape social, cultural and religious identities, especially throughout the Middle Ages.
2) We will look at the human ingenuity that transformed sheep from a practically hairless animal
to one capable of growing enough wool to clothe the entire population of the western world,
Asia, the Middle East and the Americas until the mid-20th century and the shepherds, the
unsung heroes in the story of sheep, those highly skilled, most humble of people about whom
little is recorded and without whom, the wool industry would not have evolved as it did.
3) The wool trade gave rise to a “merchant class”, wealth, divisions of labor and a multitude of
specializations. Wool had a tremendous impact on the rise, decline, and total collapse of major
Italian banking families such as the Medici’s, Bardi’s, Peruzzi’s and the Scali. 
4)   From the earliest stages of wool use in Mesopotamia, sheep and wool have become
symbols of individual and cultural identity, social status, liberty and freedom, wealth and
poverty.  We will also look at symbolisms of sheep and wool in art, literature and religion. 
5) Wool passes through many hands before coming to rest on someone’s back. Sheep require
land and wool requires transportation, roads and places of storage. We will look at the complex
infrastructure necessary in the management of sheep and wool along the way to its final
destination.    
Despite idyllic images of tranquil shepherds tending their flocks or a little girl’s lamb with fleece
as white as snow, wool has played a significant role in wars and conflicts. We will look at wool
as an indispensable commodity for soldiers, an economic tool to finance wars, and at how the
wool market was monopolized to the detriment of enemy countries during both world wars.  
6)  A summary of the history of wool and its impact on shaping individual identities and global
industries, culminating with the current wool industry around the world and its competing

MIGRATION AND THE BIRDS OF SPRING Instructor: Sheldon Harvey

Spring is almost here...at least we hope so!  But we can always count on one group to know for
sure when Spring has arrived, that being birds!  One of the most exciting times of the year for
anyone interested in birds is Spring Migration.  This course will focus on the "who, what, when,
where, why and how" of spring migration. Who will we see; what to look for; when to start
looking; where to look; and why and how does it all happen.
Migration is one of the great mysteries of nature, studied and monitored by professional
biologists, scientists, and ornithologists, but also enjoyed by millions of amateur birdwatchers
around the globe each year.  Join us for this fascinating look into the amazing world of bird migration.

MOVIE MATINEE

Here is the selection of movies for this session. I realize that some of you may have

seen some of them. But sometimes, it’s OK to watch a movie a second time; you pick

up on things you hadn’t the first time around or you get a totally different perspective

depending on where your life is at in that moment.

I hope you will still enjoy them all – even if they are repeats for you!

1. Moonlight and Valentino – 1995 – Comedy

2. A Dangerous Method – 2011 – Romance / Drama

3. Conclave – 2024 – Drama / Suspense

4. A Man Called Otto – 2023 – Comedy

5. Colette – 2018 – Drama / Historical

6. Respect – 2021 – Drama / Biographical

A NEW GLOBAL HISTORY: EAST AND WEST, Part 3. Instructor: F.X. Charet

With the rise of China as a leading economic and military power, the uncertain role of Russia,
the increasing emergence of India, and the challenges and divisions faced in the West the
future remains unclear. Topics covered: Unipolar vs Multipolar world, Shifting Global Alliances,
Economics, Politics and Military Conflict.

THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTIES: PART 1: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND ANTI-VIETNAM Instructor: Zsolt Alapi

The 1960s was a turbulent era of great social change as well as a revolution in consciousness.
Through the Civil Rights Movement, Anti-Vietnam, Women’s Liberation, and the Psychedelic
Movement, the very foundations of North American society were challenged and its culture
forever altered.
The 60s was also a time of great innovation in music, both folk and rock and roll, from the
Beatles to Bob Dylan and the emergence of Motown, Soul, and Psychedelic Rock.
By looking at the writings and music of seminal figures of this era, we will ask questions like:
What were the values and possible ideologies at the heart of each movement, and what was the
“message” of the music so integral to the youth of that era?
Required Text: Charters, Ann (ed.) The Portable Sixties Reader (Penguin Classics)
(Part II: Women’s Liberation and Psychedelics will follow in another Session.)

STORIES IN STONE – HISTORY & ARCHITECTURE OF SHERBROOKE ST. WEST. PART II Instructor: Ingrid Birker

Featuring indoor and outdoor visits to some of Montreal’s iconic buildings along Sherbrooke Street West
and on the McGill campus, this spring series explores the geology and rich social history of 18 th  and
19 th  century Montreal from the outside in.   
(If the weather is really bad some of these sessions can be transformed completely into an indoor
lecture.)
March 17, 2025 - McCord Museum and Houdini. This will include a guided tour of the Indigenous
exhibits with our guide Harvey Levinson. The senior rate is $15/. Meet at Victoria St. entrance.
*Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - Stones and Fine Art in Montreal. We will examine the variety of stones on
the exterior walls and then go inside the Bourgie Hall to look for the Tiffany stained glass. The third floor
of the Bourgie Hall at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has just unveiled a brand-new gallery
showcasing Inuit art with the exhibit called ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ Uummaqutik: essence of life .
* I am suggesting we consider doing this on the morning of March 25 instead of Monday because the
MMFA gives free access to the museum on Tuesdays between 10:
March 31, 2025 – Stones, sugar beets and footprints at McGill’s Faculty Club. We will find ancient
footprints in the exterior walls and then visit the interior rooms to find where Maude Abbott broke the
gender barrier to have lunch.
April 7, 2025 – Stones, slate and sculptures at McGill. We will start at the marble friendship fountain
sculpted by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1938 to cement goodwill between US and Canada and then
move around to examine the many large outdoor sculptures. This will be followed by an indoor guided
visit to the Rare Book Library.     
April 14, 2025 – Stones and stories at the Osler Library, the Hosmer House, and the Davis House
April 28, 2025- Stones, ducks and golf at the Old Fort. The oldest schools in North America are the
stone towers at the Old Fort. The limestones used for the towers and the external wall contain bryozoan
fossils. We will look for these fossils together and then visit the interior Chapel of the Grand Seminaire. 
(If the weather is good we will find the reflecting pool behind the parking lot see if the Mallard family
has come back for spring mating.)