Study Groups

Mary Nowak
Mondays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., via Zoom
Five Weeks, Beginning March 2

Thomas Paine's Common Sense was a blockbuster and we are certain to hear more about this pamphlet as we move forward to the celebrations of the founding of our government. It was the hit of the day. It galvanized the support for the idea that maybe the colonists were ready to move on. It was a small pamphlet, not written by a scholar. What made it so appealing? All of us know of it, but how many have read it? We will read this famous pamphlet, analyze it, learn about the context, the sources of Paine's ideas, all the details of the writing, publishing and distribution, how it was received by individuals and various groups, and if some colonies differed from other colonies with regard to this pamphlet. As a conclusion, we'll look at the context and all we've learned and see if any of our understandings of the pamphlet and related events has any application to events in the United States as it is today and going forward.

Mary Nowak has a BA and MA in American history from Boston University. She taught American history and U.S. and world geography in Brookline. She has led several study groups for LLARC on women in the Suffrage Movement, the Labor Movement, the Progressive Movement, the American Civil War, and America’s Internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII.

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Mary Nowak
Mondays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., via Zoom
Five Weeks, Beginning April 6

As we move into the celebration of our founding, we are going to read and discuss The Declaration of Independence in detail, analyzing every line and more extensively every complaint that the colonists had. To whom were they complaining? Why did they feel the need to explain? What makes this document so special to you, to the colonies, to the world then and now, to the United States today? How, specifically, does this document relate to the Constitution? How, specifically, does this document relate to the United States today?

Readings:

• The Declaration of Independence; The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson (Available in Library).

Mary Nowak has a BA and MA in American history from Boston University. She taught American history and U.S. and world geography in Brookline. She has led several study groups for LLARC on women in the Suffrage Movement, the Labor Movement, the Progressive Movement, the American Civil War, and America’s Internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII.

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Virginia Slep
Mondays, 10 a.m. - noon, via Zoom
10 Weeks, Beginning March 2

In this writing group, the creative talents of the participants will be encouraged by their peers. Members are invited to write in any genre: memoir, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essay, humor or play. Handouts will be provided to stimulate writing. Participants are given time to share their writings with classmates if they choose. Sometimes in talking about someone else’s writing, we are able to clarify our own thoughts and abilities. This is a light-hearted, supportive, welcoming group whose members enjoy writing for the fun of it and is a continuation from fall 2025.

Virginia Slep holds a BA and an MA in English and taught high school English for 35 years before her retirement. She has been leading this writing study group at LLARC since 2008 and was awarded the 2023 LLARC Bernie Shuster Award for excellence in teaching. She writes a regular column for the North Reading Transcript. Virginia has a PhD in Clinical Hypnosis and has a private practice in Wayland.

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Kara Torres-Kilgannon
Mondays, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., In Person FAC 301
Six Weeks, Beginning March 2

Film shapes how wars are remembered, imagined, and understood. This course explores World War II and the Cold War through powerful cinematic representations, confronting the difficulties of portraying conflict on screen. By examining war films from the United States, Poland, and the Netherlands, students will engage with pressing questions about memory, politics, and the ethics of representing violence and history.

Kara Torres-Kilgannon is a historian specializing in Holocaust and Genocide Studies; she earned a BA in History from Sheffield Hallam University, an MA (in Law) from the University of Sheffield, and an MA from Yeshiva University. She is pursuing her PhD in Holocaust and; Genocide Studies at Gratz College.

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Jim McLaren
Tuesdays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., In Person FAC 301
10 Weeks, Beginning March 3

This course will focus on the physiology of the human body in health and disease. You are the product of millions of years of evolution and that ancestry will give a much clearer picture how your body has come to be and how all of its components work. We will look at the structure and function of each of your body’s organ systems in that context.

Jim McLaren is a retired science teacher and Department Head at Newton South High School. In the 80’s and 90’s he co-authored a middle school and a high school biology text that were adopted in schools nationally. His interest in science in general and biology in particular is lifelong, as is his interest in infecting others, young and adult, with that passion.

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Claire Levovsky
Tuesdays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., In Person FAC 302
Nine Weeks, Beginning March 10

Books and movies are two very different mediums that provide distinct forms of entertainment, but which is better? Both forms of entertainment offer a variety of different things that people find enjoyable like their ability to take us to different worlds, imagine new realities, learn new things, and provide a way to de-stress. The biggest difference between the two is that movies give viewers visuals to focus on while books challenge readers to imagine and interpret the story in their own unique way. This and other differences can make one medium better at telling a story or providing a better form of entertainment.

Readings:

• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Mrs. Galloway by Virginia Wolfe
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
• The Lost Husband by Katherine Center
• The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand

Claire Levovsky earned her BA from Boston University, a Master’s in Rehabilitation Counseling from Assumption College, and a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

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Alice Miller
Tuesdays 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., In Person FAC 301
Five Weeks, Beginning April 7

Understanding music enables us to appreciate it more deeply. This course will provide rich insights into a range of concepts around classical music, including the mix of instruments, the work of the conductor, and the various styles of instrumental performance. Alice will also perform various pieces for the class to demonstrate the concepts discussed.

Alice Miller is the Regis College Artist-in-Residence, a professional flutist and a Juilliard graduate, with a rich background of solo, orchestral and chamber music performances.

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Ronna Frick
Tuesdays 1 - 4 p.m., via Zoom
10 Weeks, Beginning March 3

In this course we will be discussing ten films that feature two great screen legends, Gene Hackman and Robert Redford, whose recent deaths left a hole in the American film industry. Gene Hackman was an American actor whose career spanned six decades and who earned two Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award during his prolific career. Hackman also received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2003. He was considered one of the great actors of his generation and was known for the variety of his roles and the depth with which he explored his characters. Robert Redford was an actor whose good looks and subtle acting made him one of the biggest movie stars of all time. He forged an even more profound legacy in cinema as a patron saint of American independent film. In his career, that also spanned over 60 years, he received many awards including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and five Golden Globe Awards as well as other honors including the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

We will be examining the careers of these two great actors by viewing and discussing five each of their films; Hackman’s I Never Sang for My Father (’70), The Conversation (’74), Hoosiers (’86), Mississippi Burning (’88), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and Redford’s The Candidate (’72), The Sting (’73), Three Days of the Condor (’75), The Natural (’84), and The Old Man and the Gun (2018). (These titles are subject to change.)

We hope you will join us for what should be an engaging examination of these most extraordinary actors.

Ronna Frick retired after teaching high school English for 40 years, the last nine also serving as the English Department Head at Wellesley High School. Having previously been an SGL for numerous LLARC courses, including many film classes, and winner of the Bernie Shuster award, she looks forward to another meaningful and fun experience with other life-long learners!

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EJ Nicholas
Wednesdays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., In Person FAC 301
Two Weeks, Beginning March 4

Members of the Weston Fire Department will provide in-depth presentations on health issues of particular concern to seniors, including home and fire safety, emergency services, food and nutrition, and medication concerns.

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Dorothy Miller
Wednesdays 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., In Person FAC 301
10 Weeks, Beginning March 4

We will read Tess of the D’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy. This is Hardy’s eleventh novel that takes place in Wessex, the fictional area of England, southwest of London. Virginia Woolf says, “If we are to place Hardy among his fellows, we must call him the greatest tragic writer in the English language.” I look forward to reading and discussing this book with you. I use the Signet edition, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t find it because there are many short chapters.

Dorothy Miller graduated from Brown University and did her graduate work at Boston College, where she taught in the English Department for 40 years. This is her fourth year teaching at Regis.

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J. Adrian Zimmer
Wednesdays 1 - 4 p.m., via Zoom
Eight Weeks, Beginning March 4

What is it we want from a film? Understanding? Adrenaline? Comfort? Distraction? Surprise? Exposure to something different about the world? Whatever we want, do we need a coherent story to get it? If so, must the story be told in a certain way? Here’s your chance to find your own answers to these questions. We will watch eight unusual films and discuss what they have to offer. You can watch the films on your own; they are all streamable for less than $5. Or you can watch them in the first part of each 2 ½ - 3 ¼-hour online class. If you watch a film on your own, you can join the class during a break before the discussion part. The films are:

In this Corner of the World (2016, Japan, 2hr 9mins)

• Animation that dramatizes the fictional life of a woman who lived near Hiroshima during WWII.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, English, 2hr 25mins)

• Sometimes more of a spoof of a western than a western, this film portrays simple stories of revenge and a dying wild west.

Tokyo Story (1953, Japan, 2hr 17mins)

• Ozu, possibly the most Japanese of the internationally recognized directors shows us an elderly couple visiting their grown children in Tokyo.

Vivre Sa Vie (1962, France, 1hr 25mins)

• A story about a young Paris prostitute told in episodes that are abrupt and sometimes documentary.

Perfect Days (2023, Japan, 2hr 4mins)

• A German director shows us a Tokyo toilet cleaner who finds beauty in life. Real architecturally designed public toilets are featured.

Ten (2002, Iran, 1hr 34mins)

• Ten conversations showing how one Tehran female driver and various front-seat passengers think about their lives and men. No professional actors in this film.

Bubble (2005, US, 1hr 13mins)

• We get to know three workers and a police detective in a doll factory located in a small US town. Locals were used as actors. The doll factory and police detective are real.

In the Mood for Love (2000, Hongkong, 1hr 38mins)

• An unconsummated romantic love that develops in slow moving scenes with little dialog and much background music. The 1960s Shanghainese subculture in Hongkong is shown.

J. Adrian Zimmer audited his first anthropology course when he was 13. Later he minored in sociology and went on through a postdoc in math. Then he taught and wrote about computer science. Upon retiring, he switched gears again and has led several film courses for Regis, Tufts, and H.I.L.R.

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Dick Sullivan
Thursdays 9:30 - 11 a.m., In Person FAC 301
10 Weeks, Beginning March 5

The course will focus on the forces that led to creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, domination by the Ulster Unionist party for the next 50 years, the civil rights movement in the 1960s, direct rule from London for the next 30 years, and struggles to introduce power sharing from 1998-2025. We will discuss Northern Ireland’s status as a constituent country within the United Kingdom for the past 100 years and the impact of the British Army policing residents’ behavior in cities and towns for 40 years. We will explore prospects for dealing with the past and reunification with the Republic of Ireland in this decade. We will discern America’s interests in the future of this territory torn by violence, cultural and religious identities, and partisan voting rules and identify the impact that one-party rule, Army occupation of American cities, and direct rule from our Capitol might have on the United States.

Readings:

• Northern Ireland: The Fragile Peace by Feargal Cochrane. Publ. in 2021. A copy (paperback or ebook) can be purchased from Yale University Press.

Dick Sullivan has led a course for LLARC on the Transformation of Ireland during the Twentieth Century. That course dealt primarily with the separation of Ireland from its centuries-old domination by England, civil war, coming of a Republic, and its emergence as an economic powerhouse within Europe in the 1990s. Dick holds degrees from the College of the Holy Cross: AB psychology; Boston College: Masters in Education; and Northeastern University: Master’s degree in Public Administration. He taught 13 years at the Boston University School of Business. Department: Organizational Behavior.

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Rachel Alpert
Thursdays 12:30 - 2 p.m., In Person FAC 302 (LLAIC course)
10 Weeks

James Joyce’s Ulysses is widely celebrated as one of the great masterpieces of twentieth century literature. Its indelible characters, epic themes, intimate realism, imaginative style, poetic prose, and unparalleled literary connections present a unique reading experience. The book, at 730 pages, is, however, a daunting read, unguided. This class will be a continuation of the course offered in the fall, though participants who were not in the fall class are welcome to join as well. Hans Walter Gabler edition of Ulysses is highly recommended as it has line numbers for easy reference. In addition, I will provide explanatory materials for each class.

Rachel Alpert taught high school English and then as a lawyer taught at Suffolk Law School. She has led lifelong learning courses on “Freedom of Speech,” “The Rise of Religion in the Supreme Court,” “The Regulation of Food in the U.S.”, and James Joyce’s Ulysses.

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Bill Koehler
Fridays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., via Zoom
Five Weeks, Beginning March 6

In the wake of Germany’s defeat in the First World War and the untold suffering and destruction of the conflict, the German Empire became a Republic, the country’s first foray into democracy. We will examine the highs and lows of German society, politics, and culture from the end of WWI in 1918 to the onset of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933.

William Koehler, Dean of the Sloane School of Business and Communication at Regis College, holds a Ph.D. in Modern European History from Brandeis University and has taught in higher education for over three decades.

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Bill Koehler
Fridays 9:15 - 10:45 a.m., via Zoom
Five Weeks, Beginning April 17

Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France from 1799 until his final exile after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Not only did Napoleon establish one of the largest empires the world has ever known, but also transformed French and European society. We’ll examine his life and the impacts of his rule, many of which still shape the world in which we live.

William Koehler, Dean of the Sloane School of Business and Communication at Regis College, holds a Ph.D. in Modern European History from Brandeis University and has taught in higher education for over three decades.

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Mary Mahoney
Fridays 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., In Person FAC 301
Six Weeks, Beginning March 6

Have you watched various dynastic fictions on Netflix? The Crown, Peaky Blinders, Succession? Or perhaps you have followed, watched or read about the Kennedy family with all of the media drama entailed. Well… The House of Guinness is a fascinating fiction based on the family that started the dynasty famous for the ‘black stuff' known as Guinness stout. Let’s take a look and travel back to 1868 in an Ireland still recovering from the Potato Famine. We will compare and discuss the facts and the fiction. We will investigate the history and the representation of the Guinness family. Did all that was portrayed really happen? How much of the portrayal of the family is based on rumor and how much on fact? The series is shown on Netflix and participants will be asked to view one or two episodes before each class. Be aware some of the scenes are ‘salty’ (a word Professor Koehler used). [Also, a field trip may be necessary to a local Irish Pub.]

Mary Hawes Mahoney is a teacher at heart. She taught English Language Arts and history (all kinds, including ancient civilizations, world religions, American history from inception to present day, World War I and II, and Western civilization) in the Sudbury Public Schools for 37 years. Ireland and Irish history have been a particular interest because her mother’s ‘people’ were from Ireland. They had the misfortune to have traveled on ‘coffin ships’ and were refused entry at ports in Boston and New York. Subsequently, as a child, Mahoney was steeped in tales of the Irish and Irish history, but those tales did not always follow the history she was taught in school. Curiosity piqued, after she had gotten two degrees from Boston College and had been teaching history for years. Thus, she accepted an invitation to spend a summer studying at the National University of Ireland, Galway in the 1990s. She returned to Galway as well as spent another summer at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She now would like to share the historical perspective gained, along with the music, myths and humor of the Irish.

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Karen Mallozzi
Fridays 1 - 2:30 p.m., In Person FAC 301
10 Weeks

The group will read five regular-length mystery novels and five short story mysteries. The group leader provides the short stories and participants may read the regular length novels on an e-reader, listen on audible, etc., borrow from a library, or purchase new or used copies. The group is discussion-based and considers, plot, setting, character development, and so on. The leader emails a list of discussion questions prior to the start of each class to frame the discussion. Reading is done before class so that discussion can begin at the start of class.

Karen Mallozzi has led 10+ sessions of the Mystery discussions as well as a two-week summer Intersession on the book North Woods by Daniel Mason. She graduated from URI in 1981 with a BA in history with minors in English and Political Science. In 2012 she completed her MA in religious studies from Andover-Newton Theological School. In her free time, she gardens, bakes, and volunteers, and reads, reads, reads!

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