The Fight Against Fascism and the Nazis, a survey of individuals who couldn’t stand by but took action for their moral beliefs: Americans, Brits, Poles, Belgians, Dutch, Italians, etc.  It looks at the many ways people found to thwart and fight the Nazis and fascist ideology.  

8 weeks

Mondays March 17 1-3pm on ZOOM

First class (April 3) will look at Syria, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. April 10, 17, 24, Lou will share the history of Iraq.

LOU SALOME  Lou is the author of "Violence, Veils and Bloodlines: Reporting from War zones in Europe, Asia and Africa" . He earned a BS from the College of the Holy Cross and a MA from Boston College. He is a retired COX Newspapers reporter who has covered the conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

 PARKING: Please park on the street as the library has limited parking spaces and needs them for staff and members.

Many of us might remember the title of a popular book based on an age-old question, Why do bad things happen to good people? An equally important question might be, Why are bad things done by good people? It’s a puzzling question that has been tackled by evolutionary science and psychology as mapped out in Richard Wrangham’s book “The Goodness Paradox” (suggested but not required), as well as by nearly every religious tradition, resulting in a number of interesting viewpoints. We will explore some of those viewpoints and perhaps in doing so we just might gain some insight into this age-old problem, and perhaps in the process some idea as to how we can live out this paradox in favor of the nice over the nasty in our own lives and times!

CLASS LEADERS:   PAUL DOHERTY and STEVE PIKER

STEVE PIKER is an anthropologist with fieldwork in Thailand and the US. He has spent 44 years at Swarthmore College and has offerred many courses at four of Maine senior colleges. His career long interests are human evolution and religion. 

Paul Doherty is an armchair theologian with experience in music, broadcasting, and ministry. He has also been teaching for several years at two Maine senior colleges, including South Coast.

Wednesdays   April 23 2023   -   May 28, 2023   1-2:30

This presentation looks at the period leading up to World War I. It is intended for middle and high school students. It is not meant to give a comprehensive history of the Black experience in Maine but used to complement and supplement the work that teachers are already doing in their classrooms. The primary ideas that we hope students take away from this program center around Black Mainers persistence, resilience, and resistance to oppression.

When talking about persistence: African Americans live in Maine and have lived in Maine for at least as long as people of European descent (and most of us are ignorant of this history because we do not learn about it). And when we talk about resilience and resistance to oppression, we mean to demonstrate that African Americans (and others) in Maine have actively resisted racism and inequity in their lives and throughout Maine’s history. This program does this by focusing on individuals and their stories.

While the program touches upon the enslavement of African Americans, it concentrates on how enslavement existed here in Maine. Again, this is not a comprehensive history of that experience throughout the United States. And it was important to us not to focus solely on that experience, but to also show the strength and humanity of those who resisted slavery, racism, and othering.