History of Sicily (Osher Online)
Virtual Course | To register, please call us at: 305-919-5900.
We are delighted to be able to continue our collaboration with OSHER ONLINE, an educational service that is offered by our "big sister" the Osher National Resource Center (NRC) at Northwestern University. This class is being run and organized by NRC staff. Sessions are live and will not be recorded.
Sicily has long been one of the most mythic, magical, and misunderstood places in the Mediterranean. We will explore its central role in Western civilization—from Homeric epics and classical antiquity through the Arabo-Norman Golden Age that helped ignite the Renaissance. We will examine how Sicily’s cultural richness gave way to exploitation and poverty under Spanish rule, and how it later reemerged in modern imagination through figures like Garibaldi, Patton, and Coppola. Beginning and ending in mythology, this journey uncovers the island’s complex legacy of heroism, hardship, and renewal. As Goethe famously said, “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all.”
YOUR INSTRUCTOR:
Douglas Kenning, PhD (University of Edinburgh), is a writer, lecturer, and former professor of literature and history. He has taught in the U.S., Tunisia, Japan, and Italy. Now based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sicily, he offers dynamic lectures on Mediterranean civilizations and leads small-group tours exploring history, myth, and culture.
- Important Note: OLLI online classes consist of six sessions, and OLLI members enjoy a $20 discount!