OLLI OUTLOOK
OLLI @Berkeley's monthly newsletter
JANUARY 2010

Table of Contents
Course Updates
Second Chance to be an All-inclusive Member
Report on Global Cilmate Change with Dan Kammen
From Boom to Bust: One Year Later
Faculty Profile: Linda Rugg
OLLI Annual Fund: $35,000 to go!
Interest Circles Update
New News
The Lunch Bunch
Join OLLI on Facebook
Links
OLLI Website

Donate to OLLI

OLLI Events Calendar

OLLI @Berkeley Staff
Director:
Susan Hoffman

Program Coordinator:
Aileen Kim

Program Assistants:
Marisa Belski
Satya Levine


OLLI @Berkeley
University of California
1925 Walnut St #1570
Berkeley, CA 94720-1570
tel. 510.642.9934
fax 510.642.2202
berkeley_olli@berkeley.edu
http://olli.berkeley.edu
Winter 2010 Open House
REMINDER
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
9:30 am to 12:00 noon
Program starts at 10:00 am

Freight and Salvage Coffee House
2020 Addison Street


Click here to RSVP

Winter 2010 Course Schedule
Course Updates

Philippa Kelly's "Angels and Demons: Shakes'eare's Selves Evolving in Action"
New section on Tuesdays, 2-4 pm

Marshall Krause's "Current Cases Before the U.S. Supreme Court"
New section on Tuesdays, 2-4 pm

Waitlisted courses
Deborah Lichtman's "Personal Pieces in Autobiography" on Wednesdays

Marshall Krause "Current Cases Before the U.S. Supreme Court" on Thursdays


Please check the OLLI website for changes in location for classes.
Second Chance to be an All-inclusive Member

A reminder that we are offering a one-time offer to become an All-inclusive member for the remainder of 2009-10 for $500.

It includes membership for the remainder of this year and 3 courses per term for the Winter and Spring and access to Interest Circles in the Summer and priority registration

A Report on Global Climate Change: A lecture by Dan Kammen

The Way Forward from Copenhagen to Action on Energy and Climate
with Dan Kammen

UC Berkeley Professor Dan Kammen, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will give an insider's report on the Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15: the Conference of the Parties). Learn more about how the academic and NGO world will continue to work together to bridge the gap between the developed and developing nations. How do we continue to expand social awareness about what individuals and cities can do? What are the best practices and models gleaned from COP-15? What is and has been the US-China energy dialog, and what about forest protection, the renewable energy industry, and coal?

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
1:00-2:30 pm
Freight and Salvage
2020 Addison Street (at Shattuck)
Berkeley
$5-20 sliding scale
Click here to reserve a seat

Hear Dan Kammen's lecture, take his online course on The Energy Challenge: Resources and Policies

From Boom to Bust: Insights into the Economic Downturn One Year Later -- A Roundtable Discussion

How have things changed since last January's lectures by these four distinguished UC Berkeley faculty? What do they see for our future? Hear what they have to say, one year later.

Brad DeLong (Economics)
Martha Olney (Economics)
Robert Reich (Goldman School of Public Policy)
David Robinson (Haas School of Business)
 
Tuesday, March 3, 2010
1:00-3:00 pm
Freight and Salvage
2020 Addison Street (at Shattuck)
Berkeley
$5-20 sliding scale
Click here to reserve a seat

View three of last year's lectures.
Faculty Profile:  Linda Rugg
by Bonnie Mager

Wild Strawberries, Virgin Spring, The Seventh Seal.  For many people of a certain age these titles evoke memories of youth and nights spent in a dark theater, soaking up romantic images of mysterious places and times. Ingmar Bergman's movies were all the rage in the late 50s and 60s, when seeing them bestowed a glint of sophistication and worldliness.

 

A couple of decades later, Linda Rugg, a farm girl from Nebraska City, discovered the wonders of New York City as a freshman at Barnard College, among which were the wealth of movie theaters.She "caught up" on the classics which had not been available at the one-screen Pioneer Theater in her hometown. Among those classics were the films of Bergman. She was fascinated.

 

Her interest in all things Swedish had been one of those "cosmic accidents," as she called it. As a high school German student, she convinced her parents to allow her a two-month stay in Germany, where she lived with a family and improved her language skills. After returning home, she wheedled and cajoled her skeptical parents to accept an exchange student from Germany for a year's stay, expecting to further improve her German. The Lutheran organization that sponsored the exchange program instead delivered a 17-year-old girl from Sweden. Although to Linda's disappointment, she spoke no German, her English was quite good, and she soon found a place for herself in Linda's family. They became (and still are) the best of friends.

 

Linda went to live in Sweden two years later with her friend's family in a town 100 miles northwest of Stockholm.Linda conversed only in Swedish, learned that the best way to get from one village to the next was by bike, and figured out how to live through the long dark winter days. She explained that instead of coming home from school and having a nap in the dark afternoon--at 3 pm the stars were out--she would strap on her cross-country skis and go for miles on the well-lighted ski trails around the town. In the summer, there was hiking and biking in the beautiful countryside. It was a life-altering year.

 

At Barnard College, she majored in German and English and discovered a great love of literature, movies, and mysteries from many countries. After graduation she felt as though she had just gotten started in her field, and further studies beckoned. Harvard offered a Ph.D. program in comparative literature, which she completed in 1989.

 

Linda currently teaches at UC Berkeley as an associate professor of Scandinavian and has published two books and many articles in her field (see her biography under Film Studies at Berkeley.edu). Her research and teaching interests include Bergman and Strindberg, autobiography, ecology and culture, and American literature and culture.

 

For her OLLI course, she will focus on mystery writing in Scandinavia, including current writers such as Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell (author of the Wallender stories) of Sweden and Karin Fossum of Norway. Students will be asked to read a book by a husband and wife team, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, who wrote many popular mysteries in the 60s.

 

When asked whether she has a mystery of her own to write, she hesitated, then explained that good mysteries are complicated to construct. There must be a depth of knowledge about the background time and place and an understanding of character and motive. But who knows--with her background and skills, one may some day emerge.


Linda Rugg will be teaching "Murder on Ice: Crime and Detection in Scandinavian Literature and Film" on Wednesdays, January 27-March 3, from 9:30-11:30 am at the David Brower Center.


Thanks to the Our Recent Annual Fund Donors
 
We've reached $39,000 in our 2009-10 Annual Fund Campaign, with $35,000 to go. Thank you to our most recent donors.

Jody Ames
Curtis and Robin Caton
Susan Chamberlain
Barbara deJanvry
Tom and Kelly Fratar
Joan Gale
Andree Graham
Margaret Hartmann
Rosalie Holtz
Marcia Luperini
Steve and Linda Lustig
Mary McConnon
William and Suzanne McLean
Stuart Pellman
Carol Picciotto
James and Margaret Pillsbury
John Spellman
John and Helene Vilett
Gerald and Janet Weitz


 
Interest Circles Update

Interest Circles have met since November 2009. Contact the OLLI office if you would like to know more about forming an interest circle.

  • International Fiction Book Interest Circle. Here are the top five reads  from this group, which started meeting last June:
Olive Kitteridge by American writer Elizabeth Strout
The Inheritance of Loss by Indian-American writer Kiran Desai
The Death of Artemio Cruz: A Novel by Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes
Disgrace: A Novel by South African writer J. M. Coetzee
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz

  • Sacramento Politics and State Budget Interest Circle. Last summer's interest circle on Sacramento Politics and the State Budget will convene for an update on the budget and prospects for governmental reforms on Wednesday, January 20, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in Room 41B University Hall (2199 Addison Street). The group will review the governor's new budget proposals, what's happened with the old ones, and sort through various proposals for changing how California goes about governing.
On hand to give his perspective will be Mark Paul, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the New America Foundation California, and former editor The Sacramento Bee. Click here to see his most recent article on the governability of California.
 
All OLLI members are welcome for what should be a lively and informative discussion.
 
  • Poetry Out Loud explores poetry by reading poems and discussing them with others. Meetings will be held on alternate weeks with various times possible. Contact Lois Sharpnack at lois@jong.com if you are interested; please give times you would be available so we can find a mutually convenient time.

New News

New OLLI Member Reception

If you're a new OLLI @Berkeley member, meet some of our volunteers from the Membership Committee and Annual Fund Committee on Tuesday, February 2, from 3-4:30 pm in the lobby of the David Brower Center (2150 Allston Way). Find out how to get more out of being a member. RSVP here.

To a Happy and HEALTHY New Year!
Also OLLI members can subscribe to the Berkeley Wellness Letter for $9/year. You'll receive the newsletter in the mail once a month. It provide timely, relevant information for you and your family's health concerns. To subscribe, call 1-800-829-9170 and give the OLLI @Berkeley promotional code: 84MWNL to receive the special rate.

The Lunch Bunch
by Lucille Poskanzer

 
Gather
David Brower Center
2220 Oxford Street
Berkeley, CA  94704
510.809.0400
http://gatherrestaurant.com
 
Brand new, this lovely place is just steps away from our OLLI classes, and it is a treasure you must try. The menu is eclectic, offering something for everyone, all moderately priced and of the highest quality. They are committed to locally-raised and sustainable food, and the menu notes which selections are vegan, gluten-free, and locovore.  It is currently open for dinner only, but they plan to begin offering lunch in the near future.

Join OLLI @Berkeley on Facebook

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Enter "OLLI" and "Berkeley" in the Facebook search box and join!