Cancelled due to low registration. Watch this space for announcements of programs in Fall, 2008.

In families and friendships, one of the most emotionally-charged situations is when someone tries to "triangle in" someone -- tries to get another person emotionally involved in the relationship between that person and a third party. In this session, we'll look at practical ways to recognize and handle "emotional triangles" using systems thinking and ideas from Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication.

Place: Green Hedges Arts Building

Date: April 12

Time: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. (we will break for an hour for lunch -- bring your lunch or find something at the many places nearby)

Bring: a notebook and one or two situations that are on your mind

4 sessions (attend one, several, or all)

Early Christianity’s history, as scholars today describe it, is quite a bit different than what you might have learned in Sunday School or from earlier histories, skeptical or orthodox. The early history is rich with a variety of perspectives, most forgotten today. How the battles for what would become orthodoxy turned out has affected world history profoundly.

NoVES Leader, Jone Lewis, has long had an interest in religions and how they developed, and she’ll bring some of what she’s learned from that study, aided by some videotapes and book excerpts from today’s scholars on the subject.

Included: what The Da Vinci Code got wrong, way wrong, about Christian history.

Place: Green Hedges, Arts Building

Time: 7-9 p.m.

Dates: April 2, 23, 30, May 7

Suggested donation: $20/course (covers all 4 sessions)

Six sessions

An introduction to ethical theories and ethical thinking. Literature and philosophy have both been instruments of challenge to established systems of morality, and ways to explore the implications of ethical ideas in human life. In each session, participants will discuss selected readings drawn from literature and philosophy. All readings are from out-of-copyright sources and will be distributed to registered students.

The focus of each session will be:

1. What's ethics?

2. What is good, what is evil? And, is everything relative?

3. Utilitarianism: the greatest good for the greatest number: pros and cons

4. Deontological ethics: Kant and his heirs and critics

5. Virtue-based ethics

6. Pragmatic ethics (Jane Addams, John Dewey, Felix Adler)

Location: Green Hedges School, Art Building