Summer 2025 @ BOLLI
Spend your summer with BOLLI! Members can enjoy curated lecture series, small group seminars, and other selected activities. Check back often for updates!
Summer 2025 Seminars

Gil Harel
Professor of Musicology
There are many metrics by which one might assess the quality and success of a Broadway show. Typically, this involves nominations for prestigious accolades (e.g., the Tony Awards), as well as box office drawing power, national tours, revivals, and the like. But not every great show has an initially favorable reception, and these shows sometimes languish in obscurity until they are rediscovered and elevated by appreciative fans.
During this seminar, Professor Gil Harel will discuss five shows that did not do especially well with respect to awards ceremonies, but have gone until to become venerated standards in the repertoire. Among these five shows, we will consider two by Stephen Sondheim: Pacific Overtures (1976), and Merrily We Roll Along (1981). Among the other shows that we'll examine, we will consider works by iconic composers including Stephen Schwartz and Alan Menken. BOLLI members can expect to encounter great music, compelling plots, and fascinating insider stories as we study some of Broadway's hidden gems.
Dates:
- Tuesday, June 3, 2025
- Thursday, June 5, 2025
- Tuesday, June 10, 2025
- Thursday, June 12, 2025
- Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Time: 9:30am-12:15pm ET
Location: Zoom
Registration: Registration is first-come, first-served. Members will receive an email with a personalized registration link on May 12 at 12:00pm ET. Non-members, please contact Dom Restivo at drestivo@brandeis.edu to register.
Gil Harel
Professor of Musicology
Though opera was born at the dawn of the baroque period, it was in the age of Enlightenment that the genre reached a kind of apotheosis in the very capable hands of Wolfgang Mozart. Through his collaborations with Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart forged a style that continues to comnstitute an important part of the standard repertoire today.
During this class, Professor Gil Harel will compare two of the “Da Ponte operas”: The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787). Through his exaltation of melody, Mozart would influence composers who took the proverbial baton and became forerunners of the “Bel Canto” style. As the name suggests, beautiful singing – and the melodies to be sung – were are the core of this style. As our seminar progresses, we will analyze famous works including Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lucia di Lammermoor, and finally, an opera that retains bel canto elements while forging something new: Verdi's La Traviata.
Dates:
- Tuesday, July 22, 2025
- Thursday, July 24, 2025
- Tuesday, July 28, 2025
- Thursday, July 28, 2025
- Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Location: Zoom
Registration: Registration is first-come, first-served. Members will receive an email with a personalized registration link on May 12 at 12:00pm ET. Non-members, please contact Dom Restivo at drestivo@brandeis.edu to register.

Billy Flesch
Professor of English
Before Ed McBain there was Dashiell Hammett, who you could say invented film noir with his amazing hard-boiled detective novels. Hammett is now recognized as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. We'll read two linked short stories by Hammett (together they're called The Big Knockover) as well as The Maltese Falcon and watch John Huston's amazing 1941 adaptation of it, arguably the first actual film noir.
Dates:
- Monday, August 18
- Tuesday, August 19
- Wednesday, August 20
- Thursday, August 21
- Friday, August 22
Time: 2:00pm-4:45pm ET
Location: Zoom
Registration: Registration is first-come, first-served. Members will receive an email with a personalized registration link on May 12 at 12:00pm ET. Non-members, please contact Dom Restivo at drestivo@brandeis.edu to register.
Summer 2025 Lectures
We will then turn to contemporary geopolitics: territorial disputes, maritime competition, and energy exploration. Special attention will be paid to the Greece–Turkey–Cyprus triangle, a critical fault line that continues to shape NATO policy and U.S. strategic interests. Turkey’s ambitions under President Erdoğan—extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Syria, the Balkans, and even the Sahel—will be a major focus.
We will explore the current situation in Syria, including insights from my recent visit to Damascus, and assess Egypt’s internal pressures and its vital role in European security, especially as a host of millions of migrants.
In light of the Israel-Hamas war, we will analyze the stakes for regional peace and U.S. diplomacy. The final sessions will examine the Eastern Mediterranean’s role as a vital maritime corridor—home to the Suez Canal and now a growing theater of security concerns due to recent Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
Throughout the lectures, we will connect the region’s past with its present, offering a deeper understanding of why this region matters—not just to its neighbors, but to the United States and the international order.
Athanasios Grammenos is a scholar of International Relations. He is an Adjunct Lecturer at Aristotle University, an SGL at BOLLI, and Executive Director of the Council for International Relations–Greece. He has published in peer-reviewed journals on geopolitics, international affairs, and history. He is a former Library Fellow at Sacramento State University and a recipient of the NATO Scholarship from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is the author of Orthodox American and editor of The Revolution of 1821 and Modern Greece. His poetry collection Margaron was published in 2023. His forthcoming book on Greece’s geopolitical history will be released in summer 2025.
Dates:
- Wednesday, June 4
- Monday, June 9
- Wednesday, June 18
- Wednesday, June 25
- Wednesday, July 2
Time: 9:30am-11:00am ET
Location: Zoom

Professor of English
High and Low (1963) is among Kurosawa's very greatest movies. Although at first blush it looks quite different from Seven Samurai, also starring Toshiro Mifune, it was nevertheless just as influential a movie and inaugurated the police procedurals that have become so popular ever since. But it's far more than that, and its exploration of love, loyalty, and psychology is extraordinary. (And you've never seen Mifune play a role as different from his performance in Seven Samurai.) Participants should read Ed McBain's short 87th precinct novel King's Ransom (1959) beforehand, but we'll mainly be going through the movie scene by scene.
Dates:
- Monday, August 11
- Tuesday, August 12
- Wednesday, August 13
- Thursday, August 14
- Friday, August 15
Time: 2:00pm-3:30pm ET
Location: Zoom
Regsitration: Coming soon.

Gil Harel
Professor of Musicology
Jazz historians, performers, and fans alike can all point to 1959 as a watershed year. Indeed, the scope of the music created in that single year is difficult to overstate, with celebrated musicians including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck and others contributing memorable albums and charts to the repertoire.
In this lecture series, Professor Gil Harel will consider the critical and artistic impact of the seminal albums of 1959, and in doing so, discuss the trajectories pursued by the artists who made the year so special. We will begin with Miles Davis, who recorded Kind of Blue in the spring. John Coltrane (who played on Kind of Blue) would leave the Davis group, forming his own quartet and recording Giant Steps shortly thereafter. Dave Brubeck, who had been playing with his quartet for nearly a decade, recorded the unlikely commercial hit Time Out, which featured the perennially popular "Take Five" chart. For each of these artists, we will consider not only the fruits of 1959, but how these works shaped their artistic paths in the years to come.
Dates:
- Tuesday, July 8
- Thursday, July 10
- Tuesday, July 15
- Thursday, July 17
- Monday, July 21
Location: Zoom

Professor of American Studies
Join us for three sessions with author and Brandeis professor Maura Jane Farrelly as she discusses her recently released book, Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent: A Story of Mystery and Tragedy on the Gilded Age Frontier. The book is the winner of this year's Spur Award in historical non-fiction, given out annually by the Western Writers of America.
Farrelly explores the tumultuous lives of three people from distinguished East Coast families who sought new beginnings in Wyoming amidst scandal and societal pressures. Their stories highlight how, by the 1890s, technological advancements and the burgeoning power of celebrity journalism made it nearly impossible for anyone to escape a difficult past, even in the remote West. The book draws parallels to today's digital age and the debate about whether people have a "right to be forgotten".
In her three sessions, Farrelly will discuss the history; the story; and then the research and writing process involved in creating the book. She will assume all participants have read the book, so if you don't want any spoilers, make sure you come prepared!
Author Bio: Maura Jane Farrelly is Associate Professor of American Studies at Brandeis University, just outside Boston, Massachusetts. She has worked as a reporter in Atlanta, Washington, DC, and New York.
Dates:
- Tuesday, August 12
- Thursday, August 14
- Tuesday, August 19
Lecture Series: Preserving America's Four Freedoms: The Heart of Our Democracy
BOLLI is partnering with Dartmouth Osher Lifelong Learning Institute to bring members livestream access to their summer lecture series.
All lectures take place on Wednesdays, 9:00am to 11:30am ET. Members will receive a link to the lecture the day prior to each event.
Description:
We believe the world and domestic situations today demand that we renew our understanding of the Four Freedoms and the role of our government and political system in ensuring their preservation. The Constitution of the United States contains the political philosophy and a system of checks and balances necessary for the operation of a democratic state to serve all its people. Have we lost the understanding of our individual and collective responsibilities required to make it work? It is time to renew our understanding of what is important to us as individuals and to the future of our country.
Please click on the titles below to learn more about each lecture.