Events

2026 Fall Program: Course Schedule and Calendar

Outlined below are the OWLS course topics, schedule and speaker details. For more details on the speakers and to register/pay online (instead of using the attached registration form): Go to: Registration Page OR Call: 614-555-5555 if questions

Upcoming Events

Seniors Singing Sondheim - 2026 OWLS Kick-Off Concert 

 September 25 and 27

On with the Show: The Amazing American Musical

October 1 and 2

From Romberg and Herbert to Rodgers and Hammerstein, and from "Naughty Marietta" to "Wicked", America's unique contribution to world theater is the American Musical. In this two-day class, we will explore the shows, the performers, and the traditions that have brought this distinctly American genre to life. Along the way, we will aim to understand why musical theater is such an American phenomenon, and we might even have a bit of a sing-along!

The presenter, Steven Anderson, is the retired director of CATCO Theater and The Phoenix Theater in Columbus. He has directed and performed all over the world.

Artificial Intelligence 

October 8 and 15

Artificial Intelligence is transforming how we live, work, and communicate. This course will continue our exploration of AI- explaining how it works and how to use popular AI tools safely and confidently. Participants will explore everyday applications, the impact of AI on jobs and careers, environmental considerations, privacy and security concerns, ethics, misinformation, and the future of AI. There will be hands-on demonstrations and practical examples, and students will gain the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions, recognizing both the opportunities and limitations of AI.

Writing your Personal Memoir 

 October 9 and October 16

This introductory memoir writing course is ideal for anyone looking to capture their life experiences in a personal narrative. You will learn how to tap into your memories, find your unique voice, and structure your writing, all through guided exercises that help you uncover meaningful moments from your life. By the end of the course, you will have a solid foundation to embark on your memoir journey with confidence and creativity. The workshop will also include tips and tricks, providing participants with a chance to write and share their stories. Additionally, the class will critique each other’s work, making for a fun and supportive sharing experience. Join us! This course will also create opportunities for writing groups beyond our two days together.

Steven McCaw, a retired educator, is well-known in Central Ohio for his personal memoir-writing workshops. In his previous classes, students wrote personal narratives, focusing on either their own memoirs or interviews with family members. Some of the most impactful stories emerged from interviews with grandparents. Steven wrote personal narratives alongside his students and, since retiring, he has continued to write. He has gained valuable insights into what makes a compelling story and how to tell it effectively.

Religion and the Founding of America: 

Navigating the Debate on Faith and Governance 

October 13 and October 20

Was the United States founded as a Christian nation? Or was it founded on the bedrock principle of church-state separation? How did the founders envision religion’s place in American public life? And what do their ideas mean for us today? In this class, we’ll explore competing perspectives on these questions and try to gain some insight into why they are so difficult to answer. We’ll analyze historical sources, including founding documents and landmark cases, alongside contemporary voices, who mobilize the authority of the founders in remarkably different ways. Our aim will not be to resolve these thorny disputes but instead to understand why they continue to matter—and why they remain so contested. I will be eager to hear what students in the class have to say!

Taught by Professor Isaac Weiner, the Ohio State University-

We are excited to welcome Dr. Weiner back. OWLS scholars have asked him to return after he experienced a highly challenging yet exciting course three years ago. Dr. Weiner is a scholar of American religious studies with research interests in pluralism, law, and culture. He is co-director of the American Religious Sounds Project, which documents the diversity of American religious life, and is co-editor of Religion Law.  His core classes specialize in Religion and American culture and law.

Exploring Short Stories

October 22 and October 23

This course focuses on the in-depth analysis of short stories, aiming to equip participants with the tools to analyze them and to create and refine their own narratives. The workshop series consists of four distinct sessions designed to enhance storytelling skills through the following topics:

1. Where to Start: Beginning Stories - Participants will evaluate effective story openings, discussing what makes them compelling and how they foreshadow future developments in the narrative before crafting their own beginnings.

2. Landing the Plane: Ending Stories - This session emphasizes the importance of strong story endings. Participants will analyze exemplary conclusions to understand how they fulfill narrative expectations and engage in a practical exercise to create resonant endings.

3. Plotting in the Drafting Stages - This session explores the role of plot in narratives. Participants will discuss the relationship between plot and character, examining how pivotal events shape storytelling through examples from short stories.

4. Over-Plotting - This session addresses the pitfalls of excessive plotting in story drafts. Participants will examine how overreliance on plot can lead to predictable narratives, engaging in discussions and exercises to foster innovative, engaging story development.

Ohio Native and graduate from the Ohio State University, Jerry Gabriel’s first novel, Deserters, was published in May 2026 (Acre Books). He is the author of two collections of stories, The Let Go (Queen's Ferry Press, 2015) and Drowned Boy (Sarabande, 2010), which won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, was a Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" pick, and was awarded the 2011 Towson Prize for Literature. His stories have appeared in One Story, Epoch, Fiction, The Missouri Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review, among other publications. He has received grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2004), the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference (2011), and the National Endowment for the Arts (2016). He lives in Maryland with his family and teaches writing at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

What Is America? Nation, Identity, and the World

October 5th and 6th

A Two-Day Short Course

What holds a nation together — and what happens when people disagree about who belongs? What role should the United States play in the world, and why do thoughtful people reach such different answers to that question? This course takes a step back from the headlines to ask something more fundamental: how do we think about America itself, and how does that shape what we expect from it?

Day One: Who Are We?

A nation is not the same thing as a state. Borders and constitutions can be written down; a sense of shared belonging cannot. Drawing on the idea of the nation as an “imagined community,” we examine what holds the United States together — and what strains that bond. Americans have long debated who counts as fully American and what the conditions of membership are. Two competing visions have run through that debate from the founding to the present: one rooted in common ancestry and cultural continuity, the other in shared principles open to anyone who embraces them. That tension sits at the heart of today’s arguments about immigration, diversity, identity, and polarization.

We ask: what do we know from history and social science about building and sustaining national solidarity across difference? When does emphasizing shared identity help — and when does it backfire? What can the American experience learn from comparable struggles in other democracies? And what does the changing ethnic and political composition of the country mean for its future cohesion?

Day Two: What Should We Do?

If Day One asks what America is, Day Two asks what America should do in the world — and why that question has become so fiercely contested. Since 1945, most Americans imagined their country as the essential defender of a Western-led international order. But that consensus has frayed, and the arguments that were once at the margins — “America, Come Home” and “America First” — are now at the center of politics.

We examine how Americans think about the country’s role in the world: the assumptions embedded in those judgments, where they come from, and why people who look at the same evidence reach such different conclusions. What has the United States actually done abroad, and how does that look from inside versus outside? What are the real costs of global engagement — and of stepping back? As American power and American society both change, how should the country’s role in the world change with them?

The questions are real. The answers are yours.

This course doesn’t offer a verdict. It offers analytical tools for thinking more clearly about questions that will define American politics for a generation. Participants will come away not with a fixed picture of what America is or should be, but with a sharper understanding of why the debate is so hard — and how to navigate it with more clarity and less noise.

About the Instructor

Richard K. Herrmann is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at The Ohio State University, where he directed the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and chaired the Department of Political Science. He has written widely on international relations, U.S. foreign policy, and political psychology, with research appearing in International Organization, World Politics, International Security, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others. Over the past fifteen years his work has focused on how national identity and group attachments shape political judgment — how people decide what they believe about the world and why. His most recent work, a new manuscript titled Making Hard Questions Easy: Identity, Motivated Reasoning, and Political Judgment in a Divided World, extends that research into the terrain this course explores. In the policy realm, he served on Secretary of State James Baker’s Policy Planning Staff and led second-track diplomatic initiatives across the Middle East and South Asia.

Past events