Lifelong Learning Lecture Series 

An informal educational program that features a wide variety of lectures.   

Join us and broaden your scope of knowledge!

Meets one Friday per month

10:30am - 12:00noon

September 2012 - June 2013

September 7

“From Legs Diamond to Dutch Schultz:

Stories from the New York Mob”

Guest Speaker: Ellen Poulsen, Author and Lecturer

   This lecture/slide show will spotlight the growth of the New York underworld: its evolution from the sensational Irish and Jewish mobsters like Schultz and Legs Diamond, to the covert and unpublicized Italian gangsters who were ignored by Hoover and the FBI, yet pursued by Thomas E. Dewey in his rise as a 1930s gangbuster.

   Ellen Poulsen is the author of two books on 1930s crime, Don’t Call Us Molls:  Women of the John Dillinger Gang and The Case Against Lucky Luciano: New York’s Most Sensational Vice Trial, which won the Silver Medal for True Crime at the 2008 Independent Publishing Book Awards.  She has appeared on Discovery Channel, History Channel and the NYC Channel specials about gangsters John Dillinger and Lucky Luciano. 

October 5

“The School of Paris”

Guest Speaker: Ines Powell, Art Historian and Educator,

Metropolitan Museum of Art

   Paris was the center of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century. The city was an exciting center of artistic activity that provided unique conditions for the exchange of creative ideas. In the beginning of the 20th century, artists from the French provinces and from other European countries started moving to the French capital. Because of the enormous influx of non-Parisian artists living and working in the city, a loosely defined group developed which is referred to as the School of Paris.

   The School of Paris employed a diversity of styles and techniques including the bold, dynamic colors of Fauvism, the revolutionary geometric methods of Cubism, the animated qualities of Expressionism, and the private worlds of Symbolism. Henri Matise, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amadeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian are a few among the many artists from the School of Paris.

   Ines Powell is an independent art historian and educator who has been associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1982. Her experience includes Gallery Talks at the Met on permanent collections and special exhibitions in English and Spanish, researcher/writer of art history lectures, as well as lecturer in the Outreach Program.

November 2

“Automobiles and American Freedom”

Guest Speaker: Cotten Seiler, Ph.D.,

Chairman, Department of American Studies, Dickinson College

    This lecture examines the relationship of the mobility provided by automobiles to our conceptions of freedom, privacy, and citizenship in the United States. It is not merely the American landscape that has been shaped by the automobile, but the American identity. What will happen as it becomes clearer that the automobility we’ve experienced over the past century is not sustainable?

   Cotten Seiler is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the American Studies Department at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His teaching and research interests include U.S. cultural and intellectual history, popular culture, and social and political theory. His work on automobility and U.S. history has appeared in a number of international journals, and in his book Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America. His current research project examines expressions of “sameness” across a range of political and racial thought in the late twentieth-century United States. He is also Associate Editor of Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies.

December 7

“The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart”

Guest Speaker:  Harvey Wechsler, Lecturer

   This opera is a sublime mixture of wit and melancholy.  It has a great overture and real life characters which is the reason for its acceptance by audiences since 1785, continuously delighting people by it’s story.  The characters are real.  The music is gorgeous.  It’s a comedy opera - an opera buffa. 

   For Harvey Wechsler, opera is both a hobby and a pleasure.  When asked how he came to be interested in opera, he explains that he didn’t care for baseball.  So when his friends were listening to baseball games, he listened to the Met’s opera broadcasts. 

January 11*

“The Ethnic Musicals: Assimilation and Integration”

Guest Speaker: Marc Courtade, Business Manager,

Tilles Center for the Performing Arts

and Adjunct Professor, Arts Management, LIU/C.W. Post

   The melting pot of America was reflected in the Broadway Musicals. The ethnic musicals of the 1960’s and 1970’s featured contrasting ethnic groups and wove them into the fabric of the American Musical, successfully and unsuccessfully. Do such shows as Milk & Honey (1961), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Hallelujah, Baby! (1967), The Wiz (1975) and Pacific Overtures (1976) convey the mood of the modern American experience and hold up over time? 

   Earlier Broadway composers like Irving Berlin hid their immigrant roots, and attempted to incorporate their native musical colorings into the popular American culture. By the 1960s, second and third generation Americans explored “ethnic” musicals. By playing musical examples and discussing them, this lecture will examine how these musicals reflect the eras and cultures being represented. Listeners will be able to form their own opinions of how successful each set of creators was.

   Marc Courtade Producer and Artistic Director of Performance Plus!, a pre-performance lecture series. He is a frequent lecturer for the Hutton House Lectures, specializing in musicals and opera courses. An avid performer, Marc has appeared in numerous productions throughout Long Island.

* This program, which is free and open to the public, is made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities’ Speakers in the Humanities program.

February 1

Pow! - The History of Superhero Movies

Guest Speaker:  Clive Young, Author and Lecturer

   This fun lecture will combine video, PowerPoint and humor to trace the evolution of “comic book cinema;” from the Saturday-morning serials of yester-year to the box-office blockbusters of today. The program will take the audience behind the scenes of some of the coolest flicks - and a few fun TV shows - exploring how Hollywood’s take on superheroes has changed with the times and technologies available.

   Clive Young is an author/lecturer who covers the crossroads between high tech and popular culture. While he has covered the music industry as the senior editor of Pro Sound News for more than 15 years, he has also written for MTV, VH1, American Songwriter, Music Business International, Wine Enthusiast and other outlets. His latest book, Homemade Hollywood, covers the emerging ‘fan film’ culture, and received rave reviews from Total Film, the Times Literary Supplement and others. In addition to guest lecturing at dozens of universities, libraries and conventions across the US, Young has appeared in numerous documentaries as a fan culture expert and has been a guest on radio shows around the world.

March 1

“The Mystery of Johannes Vermeer”

Guest Speaker: Louise Cella Caruso, Art Educator

   Atmosphere, distinctive light, perspective, a sense of calm - the extravagant use of lead-tin yellow and ultramarine - all characteristics of the authentic works of the most mysterious of all the Dutch masters of the 17th century - Johannes Vermeer.

   Johannes Vermeer’s works are timeless - remain as wondrous today as to viewers in the 17th century Delft - the meanings of his works are forever shrouded in mystery.  This illustrated art lecture will highlight the true artistic genius of Vermeer and the relentless inner pulse of Dutch life and thought, viewed from a discreet distance.

   Louise Cella Caruso earned a Certificate in Art and Antique Appraising from the Appraisal Institute at LIU/C. W. Post; continued her studies at several renowned museums, both here and in Europe; and graduated summa cum laude from LIU/C. W. Post.

April 5

“The Life and Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany: Tastemaker of the Gilded Age”

Guest Speaker: Franklin Hill Perrell,

Executive Director, Roslyn Landmark Society

   Louis Comfort Tiffany created superb windows, lamps, mosaics, and a host of decorative arts along with his paintings. You will learn about his life, his mansion in New York City and estate in Oyster Bay, relationship to the jewelry store owned by his family, confusion over names, labels, fakes, and real. Also, we’ll portray where you can best see Tiffany masterpieces today, many of which are right here on Long Island.

   Franklin Hill Perrell has authored over 50 publications and was the curator of exhibitions for over 20 years at the Nassau County Museum of Art. Also a popular lecturer on art, history and architecture, he is now the head of the Roslyn Landmark Society.

May 3

“Deadlier than the Male: A Woman Scorned”

Guest Speaker: Barbara Kirwin, Ph.D., Author, Forensic Psychologist

   Evil women fascinate and repel us. They fly in the face of the stereotype of the “gentle sex”. While they murder less frequently than their male counterparts, when women go wrong they become monsters of depravity, committing crimes of horrifying premeditation and cruelty.

   From the historical Lizzie Borden to the cheerleader Pamela Smart, Dr. Kirwin explores the damaged psyches of these killers and their twisted motivation for their heinous crimes. While fiction writers struggle with bringing these complex creatures alive on the page, Dr. Kirwin endeavors to separate the facts from the myths in real-life cases.

   Barbara R. Kirwin, Ph.D., is one of the New York area’s premier forensic psychologists and one of the few females in the profession.  Brought in to give expert opinion in insanity defense cases, she coined the term “designer defense” and has testified in more than 100 homicide cases in New York City and Long Island during the past 26 years. Among the high-profile defendants Barbara Kirwin has examined are: Joel Rifkin, the Long Island serial killer; Dennis Sweeney, who shot and killed New York Congressman Allard Lowenstein; and Richard Taus, an FBI agent and decorated Marine Corps pilot, who was convicted of molesting 27 boys.

   Barbara Kirwin began her career as a Narcotics Parole Officer and was working towards her Ph.D. at Central Islip Psychiatric Center, during the “Son of Sam” summer in 1978, when David Berkowitz murdered six people in the boroughs of New York City. While working with the forensic psychiatrist who examined Berkowitz, Dr. Kirwin began doing dissertation research on the criminally insane.

   Dr. Kirwin then worked as a clinical neuropsychologist at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center and went on to become Assistant Director of Administration for Creedmoor.

   Dr. Kirwin has made over a hundred television appearances on all the major networks and is a frequent guest on Closing Arguments with Nancy Grace, where she does live trial commentary for Court TV. 

   In her book, The Mad, The Bad and The Innocent: The Criminal Mind on Trial, Barbara Kirwin uses forensic cases to explore a larger social issue: the criminalization of mental illness and the increasing abuses of the insanity defense.

June 7

“Media Literacy and Global Change”

Guest Speaker: Paul Mihailidis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor,

Department of Marketing Communication, Emerson College

and Director, Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change

   From Facebook to Twitter, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Uprising, people all over the world are using new participatory media tools to engage with their communities and constituents in new and dynamic ways. Youth today spend upwards of 10 hours per day with media, increasingly utilizing social networks for all their information needs. The result is a wired generation that is fundamentally changing what it means to be a citizen in today’s world.

   This lecture will explore fundamental shifts in the way that news is gathered, reported, and disseminated today - compared to key points in the past - and what this means for the current state and future of democracy in the United States and around the world.  Finally, the lecture will explore media literacy as the movement that can help prepare citizens for lives of involvement and inclusiveness in digital democracies.

   Paul Mihailidis is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Marketing Communication at Emerson College. Dr. Mihailidis’s research concerns the connections between media, education, and citizenship in the 21st century. He has published widely on media literacy, global media, and digital citizenship. He is the editor of the forthcoming News Literacy: Global Perspectives for the Newsroom and Classroom and co-author of The Media Literacy Project. His most recent work is on a Media Literacy Learning Commons Model predicated on new participatory civic voices. Mihailidis sits on the board of directors for the National Association for Media Literacy Education, and is Reviews Editor for the Journal of Media Literacy Education. Dr. Mihailidis is also director of the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change.

Limited registration may be available at the door.

Fees at the Door (if space is available)

Y Members - $13    Chai Members - $14   JASA and non-members -$15

No refunds or exchange