Taconic Learning Center invites you to begin your New Year with comradery, conversation, and courses on a variety of subjects. Once a week classes begin week of Jan 20 and run 5-8 wks. $60/yr covers as many courses as you wish.

Wm Faulkner’s The Unvanquished: A set of 7 stories of Bayard Sartoris’s reminiscences of the civil war and reconstruction in a small community in MS in which we see for ourselves the folly of war, fragmentation of community, falling apart of civil order. But there are saving graces: family love and pride, loyalty, a persistent moral code. These stories raise issues of gender, race, community that very much concern us today.

Who was The Buddha? What does it mean to follow the teachings and practices of Buddhism?

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Cornwallis Southern campaign in the American Revolution, Gallipoli Campaign WWI, Fall of French Third Republic & establishment of the Vichy Government. Also engineering and operator errors that caused the collapse of the KC Missouri HyattRegency walkway in 1989 and the partial meltdown of Three Mile Island unit II.

Conversation Class Discussion group on current issues: political, economic, social, and other. • The 2024 election • Paths forward • Persons who have influenced you • The Trolley Question • Your Favorite Children’s Books (you as child and parent).

A Fresh Look at the Bible: The Bible remains a centerpiece of western civilization and the foundation of faith for many. And yet to many it is perplexing and mysterious. A broad overview of the major themes of the Bible focusing on 8 fascinating and distinct biblical personalities as they interact with the Bible’s main character – God!

Exploring Irish Short Stories: Over many centuries, telling and retelling, adapting, enjoying stories has been a traditional part of family and social life in Ireland. Our discussions will focus on the form and content of individual stories; across stories,and consider how authors make their stories engaging, lively, imaginative, thoughtprovoking reading experiences.
Great Trials in American History From Lizzie Borden to O.J. Simpson, courts have a long history of controversial trials. We will use documentary films to examine these trials and the effects they have had then and now.

Crime Pays: In the classic detective novel, the detective interviews witnesses, uncovers facts, identifies the culprit, remands him/her to custody, and then everything returns to normal as justice is served. This idyllic vision of crime and retribution is no longer an accurate characterization, if it ever was. We will explore how the postmodern turn in literature transformed the classic detective novel by questioning all of these assumptions, creating what has been termed the “metaphysical detective novel.” We’ll read and discuss four novels in this tradition that play off this original fiction of certainty in order to raise questions about what we know and who we are (i.e., the metaphysical part).