December

From a proxy war in Yemen to an ongoing civil war in Syria, a number of ongoing conflicts have shaken the traditional alliances in the Middle East to their core. As alliances between state and non-state actors in the region are constantly shifting, the U.S. has found itself between a rock and a hard place. In a series of conflicts that are far from being black-and-white, what can the U.S. do to secure its interests in the region without causing further damage and disruption?

Reading Assignment:  Great Decisions 2016 Briefing Book Topic 1.  If you don’t have a copy another ICL member will share.  In any case additional information on this topic is available online from the Foreign Policy Association.

Our speaker following the Great Decisions video is Dr. Saghar Sadeghian, of Willamette University, formerly a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Middle East Studies in Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. She received the Rice Faculty Fellowship for the 2015-16 academic year. Her primary research focuses on modern citizenship in the Middle East with emphasis on Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. She is interested in minority groups and the question of gender, race, religion and ethnicity. For her PhD Thesis, “Non-Muslim Communities in Iran during the Constitutional Revolution,” she examined the concept of citizenship vis-à-vis the religious identity of Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and Baha’is in local, national and international levels. As some ongoing projects, Saghar is working on her thesis for a book publication; and proceeds a new project on Environmental History of Forestry and Exploitation of Caspian Forests of Northern Iran in the 19th and 20th Centuries.  She is also helping the Middle East Studies Council’s Iranian Studies Program to develop the Iran History Internet Archive website.

Franca Hernandez:                 Music of the Central Asian Nomads

Bob Muir:                                Ernest Lecuona, Cuban Composer

Bill Foster:                              Jazz Interpretations of guitarist Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez

                         BREAK

Grant Hagestedt                     Excerpts from Early ICL Music Program

Joel Woodman                       Big Band Era with a Twist

Don Gallagher                        Geriatric Funk

THANK YOU, ICL MEMBERS!

Spring term’s music potpourri will be presented by members with four years’ standing or less.

Volunteer now: Aunt Solveig wants you

In 1939-40 a cascade of events in Poland and Lithuania converged and a Dutch businessman was propelled into the role of deciding the fate of more than 2,000 Jewish refugees. That man was the father-in-law of our presenter, ICL Member Anne Bowden.

Members of the ICL Writing Group, led by ICL member Lois Rosen, will offer a fragrant blend of their stories and poems. You’re most cordially invited to enjoy the mix of vivid, lively, wise writing of the members of the group who will be announced at a later date.

Our contemporary literature discussion will be led by ICL member Jan Svingen.

The ICL book choice for Fall 2016 is  ASTORIA By Peter Stark

Set at the beginning of the 1800's and based on the historical expedition, which was championed by Thomas Jefferson and funded by John Jacob Astor, ASTORIA is the written story of two groups of explorers who set out to establish a new American colony and shipping port in the unexplored Pacific Northwest.  Peter Stark offers a harrowing saga in which a band of explorers battled nature, starvation and madness to establish the first American Settlement in the Pacific Northwest and opened up what would become the Oregon trail.

Longtime ICL Legend, Erin Hanni, will bring her boundless energy and humor to the end-of-semester sharing of favorite books of several ICL members, whose identity will be announced later.

ICL is made up of a very interesting group of folks with fascinating backgrounds. In this session which has become an ICL tradition, we will get to know a few of them a little better as we ask them to share an interesting story from their family, their work experience, or world experience. 

Today we will hear from the following ICL members, who will each share a 15 minute story: Milt Robbins, Bill Blitz, Danny Schaffer, Erma Hoffman, Carol Moeller and Lester Reed.

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