Spring Classes
by Deborah Lanser
Introduction
What a remarkable lineup of classes we have for spring. As you’ll see when the catalog is released on February 19, we are once again spoiled for choice. History buffs, art and music lovers, hikers, and gardeners will all have wonderful choices. Dance, literature, and movie aficionados will also have several pleasing options. There will be workshops on writing, painting, and public speaking; seminars and lectures about the intersection of arts and politics; and live performances. We can discover how to improve our well-being, bridge game, or investment strategy, learn history lessons from everyday objects, and consider the legal and cultural implications of modern technology. And then there are the poisons.
Zoom classes start March 5 and in-person classes on March 6. Mark your calendars for preregistration February 25 and full registration on February 26. Before making your choices, however, check out the important information about classroom access in the following article, “What’s Up in Spring ’26?”
Here is a brief foretaste of what classes will be on offer. And start looking forward to the first week of March.
Gardens and Scenery
What better way to shake off winter’s chill than to take a course on Spring Gardening? Katie Parry will guide avid gardeners on selecting annuals, caring for perennials, and growing vegetables and herbs.
Environmental educator Laura Conner will again lead LLI members on Minnewaska: Three Hikes. Each walk will feature education served with a side of scenic views, cultural history, and signs of wildlife.
American History
Robert Beaury will review the United States’ 19th-century transformation in Manifest Destiny Revisited: Racism, Religion, and Deception. The course will highlight the concept of American exceptionalism and its influence on national identity and policy.
American Top Ten: The Legacy of Exclusion will explore how the United States’ founding documents and legal systems have shaped inequality through both what they declare and what they omit. By closely examining key legal texts and their consequences, Edward Ingebretsen and class members will reflect on how courts and lawmakers drew lines that excluded entire groups.
Larry Epstein will share The Hidden History of Slavery in New York, a 30-minute documentary that digs deeply into an infamous chapter in our country’s history that largely hasn’t made its way into the history books. In this film, Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, recounts how the transatlantic slave trade was centered in the north, right on Wall Street in Manhattan.
The Visual Arts
José Moreno-Lacalle will provide a chronologic and thematic introduction to Women Artists From the Middle Ages Until Today, particularly European and American artists. A good knowledge of art history would be an asset, but it is not necessary.
Those who appreciate the Hudson Valley art scene will enjoy Contemporary Artists of the Hudson Valley: Insider Tours. Participants will visit the studios and galleries of contemporary Hudson Valley artists who will share their inspirations, processes, and careers. Artworks will include painting, sculpture, neon, photography, and installation art.
Art Workshops
Linda Schultz will introduce students to the rewards of Sumi-e, Chinese Brush Painting. This meditative and spontaneous art form can capture the essence of an image or idea with very little attention to precise details.
In Drawing for Beginners, Christine Livesey will encourage students to see with fresh clarity through some guided exercises in contour drawing, negative space, value, proportions, and perspective. Using step-by-step lessons, beginning artists may find that drawing becomes accessible, meditative, and deeply rewarding.
Art Meets Politics
Opera as Politics: No Kings will provide Chuck Mishaan with a forum to look at the troubled reigns of royal rulers as portrayed on the operatic stage and the political context in which these operas were created and performed. This hybrid class will examine how Enlightenment philosophies challenged the autocracies of the 17th to 21st centuries, and describe the autocratic response to those challenges.
The ideas and practices of civil resistance will take center stage as Barbara Danish and Laura Brown share interviews and online documentaries to discuss how citizens organize themselves to overturn repressive regimes. Movie Night in the Afternoon: Good Trouble will provide members with the opportunity to share their thoughts and questions..
Photojournalism has a long history as a medium for explaining stories of the human spirit with truth and accuracy, but it is now being distorted by social media, which uses visual manipulation, distorted half-truths, and outright lies. Gary Miller will consider the impact of these often immeasurable changes on our lives in The Birth and Death of Photojournalism.
How do American films and poetry engage with issues of race and social class? Peter Scheckner will look at answers to that question in “If Capitalism Don’t Kill Me, Racism Will!” (Amiri Baraka) American Voices on Race, Class, and Resistance Through Film and Poetry.
Technology
In From a Word Processor to the Internet to A.I. and Beyond, Georges Nahitchevansky will provide an overview of the history and challenges brand owners, artists, and consumers have faced through the evolution of the internet and new technologies such as the domain name system, social media, a blockchain-based internet, and A.I. The class will trace the legal and other challenges that have confronted trademark and copyright owners and the international, legal, and governmental responses that have emerged.
Personal Expression
Did you ever get stuck trying to figure out how to tell your story? Ann Hutton will ask What’s Your Story and How to Uncover It? This writing workshop will help you create powerful material in your own unique voice.
In Finding Your Voice: Reading Aloud, Alan Lipper helps class members develop the acting skills to perform public readings of essays, short stories, monologues, and poetry. As they practice vocal exercises to enhance resonance and create a delivery system that is conversational and real, students learn to captivate their audience with directness and simplicity and, in doing so, find their voices.
World History
As Jean-Clause Fouéré will demonstrate, maps provide an effective way of communicating and sharing information on geography, history, economics, society, and the environment. The Power of Maps will focus chiefly on the Americas, particularly North America.
Barbara Danish and Laura Brown will return with A Call to Courage: Resisting Fascism. This seminar-like course will investigate civil resistance—its inspiration, historical examples, and the ways it has been conceived, developed, and implemented.
Paris Hilton? Kim Kardashian? According to Shelley Weiner, those contemporary celebrities are mere wannabes next to the Mitford sisters in the 1930s. The family saga of Britain’s gossip-sheet “glamour girls,” as explored in Fascists, Fellow Travelers, Family: The Mitford Sisters and Their World, highlights the way in which the political can engulf the personal to devastating effect.
Music
The Chamber Music of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) played a distinctive role in the composer’s artistic life. Ray Erickson will consider all of the composer’s major chamber works and even treat the class to a live performance of several of them.
Kornelia Tamm and members of the Bard faculty will explore Mozart’s extraordinary journey from child prodigy to adult master. Mozart and His Music: Life, Works, and Legacy will highlight the brilliance of his chamber works, key pieces, and stylistic traits as well as his operas.
Grammy award–winning composer Joan Tower’s Music! Music! Music! will thrill participants with live performances of chamber music, classical repertoire, and some original compositions by Bard students from the Bard Conservatory of Music. After the performances, Professor Tower will introduce the musicians and moderate a lively Q&A session.
The Kvistad Collection Galleries house thousands of instruments, including many rare mechanical musical instruments. Garry Kvistad will demonstrate rhythm in drumming games, explain the role of percussion in music of many styles and cultures, and discuss the creation and special tunings of Woodstock Chimes.
Well-Being
Ray Yip believes that adequate physical exercise and sound nutrition are the foundation of Aging Successfully: Evidence-Based Strategies. To help class members remain healthy and functional, he will review specific measures on how best to achieve exercise and dietary goals.
By Breaking Free of Mainstream Fitness Myths, participants may find a path to releasing habitual tension, uncovering optimal coordination, and experiencing genuine ease in the body. Kelly Garone knows that sometimes doing less and listening to more refined kinesthetic feedback can lead to optimal results.
In Natural Brain Health and Facial Rejuvenation Strategies, Janice Hardgrove will demonstrate simple, gentle techniques that boost circulation and the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the brain, supporting neurogenesis. These seated, equipment-free exercises are accessible to people of all abilities.
In a single-session class, Russell Charno will demonstrate a series of exercises to enhance Functional Strength Training. These exercises are designed to strengthen the muscle groups and movement patterns that we use every day.
Aching joints? Weak bones? Sydney Nitzkorski will offer a workshop on Bone and Joint Health to help alleviate those problems with an emphasis on appropriate diet and exercise.
Writing Workshops
Lee Woodman can demonstrate “loosening up” exercises that allow both curious newcomers and seasoned writers to create formal poems. For people who have a sense of adventure and faith in the magic of language, she will offer The Poetic Pulse, a workshop to explore various forms of verse.
Class members will start Creating Worlds Out of Words after Betsy Woodman helps them put the novelist’s techniques to good use. Students in this workshop will write short pieces, look for solutions to problems, and perhaps even face the world and themselves.
More Poisons
John Ferguson continues to share his interest in various toxic substances, this time in Biology of Noninfectious Diseases: Poisons Not Usually Encountered in Nature. He will elaborate on the harmful and even deadly effects of elements such as mercury and arsenic, small molecules such as carbon monoxide and cyanide, and synthetic compounds such as pesticides and fentanyl. This will not be a lecture demonstration.
The Performing Arts
Judith Nelson will encourage members to savor a Dancing Smorgasbord, with examples of ballet, modern dance, and musical theater dance. She will delve into the technique of each style, demonstrate relevant choreography, and explain how fundamental movement concepts apply.
Kati Garcia-Renart conceived of Federico Garcia Lorca: Poet, Playwright, Revolutionary as a multidisciplinary performance, blending music, dance, and the poetic and dramatic texts of the Spanish writer Lorca. Join her in celebrating his artistry and courage against the rise of fascism.
Literature
Sherlock Holmes is a literary character so intensely real that hundreds of letters addressed to him at 221B Baker Street still arrive every year. In The World of Sherlock Holmes, Steve Bassin and other devoted Sherlockians will attempt to understand how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was able to create a literary character who is well known throughout the world.
The short story has emerged as a uniquely American literary form. Many of those stories, such as “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” were adapted into short films. In The American Short Story: From Page to Screen, David Offill will examine how viewing the same narrative in both genres can allow for a deeper understanding, even when it leads to occasional frustration.
Committed readers who tackle Dostoevsky’s Demons will gain some insight into how personal grievances, political ambition, radical ideas, and a lack of conscience can drive a small Russian town and its citizens into chaos. Daniel Lanzetta will guide a discussion of the collapse of moral order in a small 19th-century Russian town as viewed through the lens of fiction.
For Antiques Roadshow Followers
Washboards, butter churns, and quill pens are among the once-common items that have been made redundant by new technology or shifting societal needs. As Carol Bassin will explain, these Obsolete Objects can tell a story about the cultural, political, and economic systems that created them. While some are repurposed, others simply disappear from memory.
Improving Your Skills
Challenge yourself to develop the knowledge and skills to play at game level with Improving Your Bridge Game. Thomas Mayer, who has organized a local bridge club, will discuss strategies for more accurate bidding, more effective play, and how to score.
Both beginners and more knowledgeable investors may profit from Investing in 2026. Charles Hobson will explain the principles of investing in the stock market and how to analyze individual stocks.
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