Rainbow Lifelong Learning Institute, Boston

 Schedule: 

This course will take place on Wednesdays at 10:30 AM for five weeks (10/18/23 - 11/15/23).  This course will be on Zoom.

The TED Talks website tells us that the organization is "on a mission to discover and spread ideas that spark imagination, embrace possibility and catalyze impact." And Rainbow students are among the hundreds of thousands  of people around the country who turn to them, in person or online, to encounter often provocative new material from a wide variety of disciplines. For this course, a different facilitator each week will present one or two TED Talks to view together in class that present ideas that will illuminate and challenge us. The presenters, all members and friends of Rainbow, will frame the talks, and facilitate group discussion. This class is a great opportunity to be exposed to new ideas, participate in a lively discussion forum—and get to know each other’s thinking in greater depth.

Subjects this Semester:

10/18 The New Great Power Competition, David Rooks The USA has entered a period of intense geo-strategic competition with China--a discussion of the ongoing fight for global influence and control, and how it will impact our lives.

10/25 Living and Dying with Dignity, Alison Morgan Alison, who cared for her own dying mother, will lead an exploration of the challenges of caring for ourselves and our loved ones at end of life, including palliative care and Death with Dignity.

11/1 Queers in the Military, Marvin Kabakoff Brief history of queers in the US military. Discussion will include personal experiences, whether or not queer people should serve, and is serving a plus or minus for our community?

11/8 Spammers, Scammers and the Biggest Scam of Them All, Gail Leondar-Wright How one person got the best of a would-be scammer, how sometimes an internet scam is not at all what it appears to be, and how economic inequality is the biggest scam of all.

11/15 Free Speech, Hate Speech, Fake News: Whither the First Amendment?--Carole Friedman We all "believe in" the First Amendment, right? But what exactly does that mean? Can the media spread lies, spew hate speech, promote violence? 

Required Course Materials:

None